What can tiny sheets of paper reveal about a whole time period?

Xổ số kiến thiết Hà Nội, which could be loosely translated as the “Hanoi Development Lottery,” came to be during a time when northern Vietnam was rebuilding itself from the rubble of the resistance war against the French and establishing a socialist society. From the illustrations to the way it was promoted, the lottery exemplifies Vietnam’s coupon era.

At the time, while the government was still trying to make ends meet, there was great demand for infrastructure projects and amenities to improve the quality of life of the people, such as roads, schools, healthcare facilities, factories, and other public projects. Northern Vietnam was also saving money to channel revolutionary efforts in the southern region. In that economic climate, Hanoi was searching for a way to secure financial contributions that could both promote the collective spirit and appeal to the people. Thus, for the first time, during the Tết holiday of 1962, the state issued its first lottery tickets named “cần kiệm kiến thiết” (frugal development) as a lunar new year gift to Hanoians. These tickets became the initial foundation for a future lottery program that expanded to the entirety of northern and, later, the whole of Vietnam.

The lottery operation shared some similarities with its counterparts in the Soviet Union and other communist nations at the time. In the USSR, for example, the lottery was wholly state-run and tickets were distributed via official platforms like local workers’ unions, youth unions, kiosks, and state-owned stores; the government also strongly encouraged civil servants to buy tickets. This model was generally adopted by Hanoi: xổ số was both sold at physical locations and sent to state agencies so workers could purchase them at their workplaces.

The way the state promoted the lottery program in its early days displayed a strong sense of collectivist mobilization and socialist messaging. Tickets were often depicted with poetry excerpts and slogans like “Lottery purchase benefits both the state and the household” or “First, [we] build the capital / Then, [we] strengthen the nation’s future” to spread the maxim that buying these tickets was a way for the individual to play a part in developing the nation.

Overall, lottery design during this period wasn’t too elaborate, as the material and technology to produce them remained quite primitive. Both the subject matters and text on the tickets were displayed simply, using bright, eye-catching palettes and straightforward layouts, evoking propaganda posters or illustrations in old textbooks from the 1980s and 1990s. Tickets usually highlighted public buildings, Hanoi’s famous landmarks, or scenes showing Hanoians going through daily activities.

As this was viewed as a key state project, xổ số kiến thiết was run quite seriously. The lottery draw was conducted under the supervision of municipal officials at live events, most famously at the Đoàn Kết Club near Tràng Tiền Street. During the decades of a planned economy, when most commodities were tightly controlled by the state using coupons, the lottery was among the few goods that the people could buy freely. Hence, the lottery was warmly welcomed by Hanoians as a form of state-sanctioned gambling.

Đoàn Kết Club. Photo via Báo Tri thức & Cuộc sống.

Trần Minh Hải, a writer who lived through the prime years of xổ số, shared that he used to watch the lottery draw every afternoon because he “liked chum change, tiny prizes — whatever seems within reach tends to draw people in.” True lottery-heads back then even developed strategies to maximize their luck. The set price was just VND2 for a ticket, but a set with auspicious numbers can fetch VND22–24 on the black market.

The atmosphere at live lottery events could be compared to that of football matches. Fans arrived early to find the best, closest seats to the stage to watch the numeral balls spin in the case and the winning sequence on the blackboard; this was because the events took place in the evening and the electricity grid was unreliable, so one needed to stay close to the stage to read the numbers. Every spin was closely followed by hundreds of spectators eagerly waiting for the host to read out the numbers.

Lottery ticket booths. Photo by John Vink.

Hải recounts the sense of palpable disappointment in the air when the sequence was finalized: “1,001 participants simultaneously morphed their faces into a rainbow of emotions — very few of joy and most were of chagrin and regret. Shoe-clad legs stomped on the ground like a percussive symphony, harmonizing with a choir of woeful groans and thundering kneecap slaps [...], leaving behind their seats a white blanket of torn tickets and strewn shreds of hope.” Still, Hải adopted a rather sanguine outlook, reminding us of the true purpose of the lottery: “Losses also meant my beloved capital might gain a few additional bricks to build.”

In the following decades, as Vietnam’s economic model and situation shifted, the lottery operation also changed accordingly: on each ticket, socialist slogans and pastoral scenes were gone, replaced by flashy motorbikes, color TVs, and even the faces of celebrities enticing passersby to pick up a few tickets. Crowds of capital residents gathering around lottery draw events, once a highlight of the local social calendar, dissappeared too. Albeit still run by the state, xổ số today is much more commercialized, and much less about fostering a sense of collective nation-building. Still, it remains a unique facet of Hanoi’s cultural history worth remembering.

Images courtesy of Lê Khanh.