Lottery players in Shanghai will soon be listening for the sound of three lucky tunes, as a new musical game will begin play on August 1.

The music lottery will be the first computerized drawing in the country, according to the Shanghai Lottery Distribution Center.

A special computer will be set up at the largest lottery market in the city on Aomen Road, and it will have 1,000 musical scores entered into its hard drive. For each draw, the computer will pick three pieces of music, which a specialized piece of software will convert into three winning numbers between zero and nine.

Draws will be held every 30 minutes from 10am until 9:30pm, meaning there will be 23 sets of lucky numbers a day.

"Computerized drawings, although very popular in foreign countries, are still new to Chinese players," said Wang Xiaorong, an official with the center. "We added music to the new lottery simply to make it more attractive."

Tickets for the lottery will sell for 2 yuan each, and the biggest prize for each draw will be 1,000 yuan (US$123). Unlike current lotteries, the computer will run the entire event.

Wang said witnesses will watch as the computer is sealed up before the first draw, and it will only be unsealed every three months for system maintenance.

(Shanghai Daily July 30, 2005)