Digital game of chance reinvents new year tradition

Beijinger Ma Lei's fingers have been a blur across her cell phone key pad during this Lunar New Year holiday.

For Spring Festival, or Chinese Lunar New Year, an important occasion for family reunions in China, the 25-year-old has been busy on messaging app WeChat exchanging season's greetings with friends, and also playing a new year game of chance with financial rewards.

"Red Envelope Grab" was launched by WeChat two years ago. Based on the tradition of handing loved ones red envelopes stuffed with cash, the game invites users to offer a group of friends a digital red envelope worth up to 200 yuan (30.4 U.S. dollars). The catch is that the money in that envelope is split into other envelopes of smaller denominations at random. Recipients have to race to grab the money before it is all taken.

Confused? Chinese phone addicts clearly aren't. On Lunar New Year's Eve (which fell on Feb. 7 this year), WeChat recorded more than 4 billion users involved in over 8 billion Red Envelope Grab transactions, seven times the number of transactions last year.

"I must be prepared at any time. If I'm a second late, I might miss a fortune!" Ma joked.

"It's not really about the money," she added. "We're doing it for fun in celebration of new year."

Digital red envelopes and Red Envelope Grab are not just the preserve of the young. "This year, I got my lucky money from my uncles, aunts and parents through WeChat. Even my 80-year-old granny was curious about our little hobby of grabbing red envelopes and really wanted to have a try," said Ma.