The Shanghai Welfare Lottery Distribution Center is warning punters not to buy tickets from street vendors because they stand a good chance of being cheated.

The alert was posted on the center's Website (www.swlc.sh.cn) after a spate of ticket fraud cases began in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province in January.
   
In those incidents, scam artists bought real tickets that bore the winning numbers of a prior drawing and altered the date.
   
They then pretended to be migrants with no money, identity certificates or the slightest idea where to cash in their "winning" tickets and approached strangers with an offer to sell the ticket at a discount from the prize amount.
   
The altered tickets promised prizes of at least 100,000 yuan (US$12,048), and the fraudsters found many willing buyers, mostly middle-aged or elderly people who agreed to paid 2,000 yuan to 5,000 yuan a ticket.
   
The largest amount lost was 20,000 yuan, said Ma Shaohua, an official with the local lottery center.
   
No similar cases have been found in Shanghai, but lottery officials are concerned that the scam might spread here. Tickets should be purchased only from licensed outlets, they cautioned, and people trying to sell winning tickets should be reported.
   
(Shanghai Daily February 25, 2005)