Chinese government’s suspension of online lottery activity

Thursday July 30,2015 :  CHINESE SUSPENSION OF ONLINE LOTTERY OPS HURTS 500.COM
 
500.com suffers in second quarter.
 
The Chinese government’s suspension of online lottery activity has had a telling effect on the commercial performance of Hong King-based 500.com, which posted its second quarter results Wednesday, noting that net revenues were nil, compared with RMB98.8 million (US$15.9 million) in Q1-2015, and RMB156.1 million in Q2-2014.
 
The online lottery company’s operating loss was RMB96.4 million, compared with an operating profit of RMB59.5 million in the same period in 2014, while its net loss grew to RMB81.4 million from a year-on-year net profit of RMB75.4 million in Q2-2014.
 
Commenting on the situation, CEO Zhengming Pan said the suspension of online lottery sales operations by the Chinese government has “…materially and adversely impacted our results of operations and financial conditions of the second quarter of 2015.
 
“We want to restate that the company was one of the two entities approved by the Ministry of Finance in 2012 to provide online lottery sales services on behalf of the China Sports Lottery Administration Center.”
 
The company update reports that during the quarter 500.com entered into a purchase agreement with Tsinghua Unigroup for the sale of more than 63 million newly issued ordinary shares in the company.