Hacker News Reader

China has something similar as well, called the Fapiao: http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2013/08/13/understanding-...

Though as I understand it, it requires a dot matrix printer to populate these receipts (or writing them by hand).

Hmm I don't remember receiving many receipts in China. I spent 3 months there over two occasions a couple years ago. Taiwan's implementation appears more successful to me. Fapiao means receipt, so that makes sense. There is some required hardware or software but doesn't seem any more cumbersome than a credit card machine and printer. Nearly every shop has them in TW.

Edit: reading further I see China is rolling out their lottery in more areas the last few years

That's because you have to actively ask for it. If you don't, they never (almost) give it to you, as business buy those fapiaos from gov.

We asked for them quite often and they gave them each time. Total, we won 2 cans of Coke and maybe 10 yuan :)

Fun fact - fapiaos you get might be fake. Once I got fake fapiao, printed from fake printer, in fake taxi. I know it's fake because I tried to validate it online (there's service for that) after I noticed I got fake bill :/

Ah okay. That's not so surprising I guess. Sometimes I feel TW has some advantage over China in being small. Like a startup, it can implement and pivot easily.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com