BEIJING - China's lottery sales grew to around 187.68 billion yuan ($30.67 billion) in the first half of 2015, up 5.2 percent year on year, official data showed on Wednesday.

Welfare lottery sales increased by 4.4 percent to reach about 102.84 billion yuan, while the sports lottery surged 6.2 percent to 84.83 billion yuan, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) announced.

June alone saw 28.12 billion yuan's worth of lottery tickets sold, but this was actually a year-on-year decline of 22 percent, due to last year's high base.

A rush to gamble on World Cup results pushed up China's lottery sales sharply in June of 2014, contributing to 24-percent surge in lottery sales for the whole of the year.

East China's Shandong province led the rise in the first half of 2015, with its lottery sales up by 1.88 billion yuan from a year ago, while Zhejiang, Hebei and Henan provinces as well as Inner Mongolia autonomous region, also posted large increases, according to the MOF.

Under lottery management rules, money from ticket sales must cover administrative fees and public welfare projects as well as the jackpot.