At the end of 2012, Chinese Ministry of Finance (MOF) issued a regulation that officially allows for selling lottery tickets online. So far no private companies or organizations, no matter their businesses are operated online or offline, are allowed to design and issue lottery tickets in China.
Only two websites, the lottery site of the state-owned China Sports Lottery Administration Center and the parent company of 500.com (formerly 500wan.com which went public on the NYSE earlier this year) have been authorized by MOF to sell lottery tickets online.
Almost all big Chinese Internet companies, including Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba, Qihoo 360, Netease and Sina, and many startups have entered the market, establishing sites to sell lottery tickets or acquiring/investing in some of these sites. But most sites have to work with the two authorized that should at least pay the latter commissions for enabling users to buy lottery tickets directly on sites of the former.
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