Tencent inked cooperation agreement with paper maker Xiamen Anne (SH: 002235) to develop an open platform for paperless lottery. Xiamen Anne released a lottery app last year to increase the market share of paperless lottery (source in Chinese).
The Ministry of Finance (MOF) released Lottery Issuance and Marketing Management Measures at the beginning of this year, accrediting Internet and terminal marketing modes in addition to brick-and mortar stores and telephone lottery.
Tencent has become a favorite partner for paperless lottery concept enterprises thanks to its large user base. In addition to QQ Lottery, a special channel on QQ, the Internet juggernaut also teamed up with 8788.cn and 500.com. 500.com, a lottery website with more than 15 million users, planned to launch IPO on U.S. market for at least $150 million, according to people familiar with the matter (source in Chinese).
Rumor has it that Taobao Lottery will become the next strategic focus of Alibaba after the MOF eased curbs on the sector. Moreover, online sports betting accounts for a lion’s share for many online services in China such as PPTV, a sports video service.
The sales of lotteries climbed 16 percent year-on-year to 149.7 billion yuan in the fist half of this year, according to report released by the MOF (source in Chinese).