A doting father in China who won $31 million earlier this month has decided to keep it a secret from his family.

He told the local newspaper that he did it because he thought the giant win would make his family lazy.

He told the outlet: "I didn't tell my wife and child for fear that they would be too complacent and would not work, or work hard in the future.”

The 40-year-old man identified himself only as Mr Li and wanted to stay anonymous by dressing up as a bright yellow cartoon bird to keep his wife and child from knowing about the windfall.

He bought the 40 winning tickets from a store in Litang, he told Nanning Evening News.

Every ticket had the same seven numbers which eventually gave him the win. The lottery company paid out 5.48 million yuan for each ticket to give him a total of 219 million yuan (US$31 million).

After hearing about his successful win after the draw, Li boarded a train to travel to Nanning city center to collect the prize.

He stayed in a hotel during the weekend before receiving his prize on Monday.

"I did not leave the hotel because I was afraid to go out and lose the lottery ticket," Li said.

The new lottery millionaire hasn't decided what he will do with his large amount of cash, but planned to donate $715,000 to charity.

The man has been playing the lottery for more than 10 years but had only won small amounts during that time.

He revealed that his earlier strategy was to choose a new set of numbers for each game, but a few years ago he decided to play a permanent set of numbers.

The winning numbers were 2, 15, 19, 26, 27, 29, and 2.