What Numbers to Choose for My Lottery Ticket? Behavior Anomalies in the Chinese Online Lottery Market

The Chinese Online Lottery Game provides field evidence of three anomalies. The first anomaly, which has previously not been documented when there is a financial incentive to overcome, is the guidance effect. Because the lottery game bases on pari-mutuel rule, that is, a bettor who wins the game shares the jackpot with other winners, the best strategy should be to choose the least popular numbers among others – information that people could obtain on the webpage. However, instead of doing so, people would choose the most popular numbers among others. Besides, it is proved that the gambler’s fallacy does exist in the game, but the influence lasts only three days which is shorter than the findings in previous research. Second, the dataset’s availability makes it possible to show how the two fallacies unfold over time within a round of the game. The result demonstrates that the proportion of later entrants who are subject to the fallacies is higher than the proportion of earlier entrants. Third, the paper adds to the evidence showing the additional, culturally contingent pull of special numbers. In China, bettors prefer to choose the lucky number 8, even it was drawn in previou