500.com revenue up 69.4% on previous quarter

The Chinese lottery services provider showed improvement in its Q3 results but was still down 37% on the same period in 2019.

China.- The sports lottery service provider 500.com reported net revenues of RMB6.1m (US$936,307) for the third quarter, up 69.4 per cent from RMB3.6m in Q2.

However, the figure is still 37.8 per cent below the RMB9.8 million (US$1.48 million) net revenues for the third quarter of 2019.

This income came mainly from the online lottery and its online casino unit in Europe, which accounted for RMB3.3m (US$501,062)

The net loss attributable to owners in Q3 was RMB44m (US$6.5m), compared with RMB86.3 million (US$13.1) for the second quarter.

During the three-month period ending September 30, the company was able to resume lottery operations in Sweden, where they had been halted at the beginning of the year due to licence renewal issues.

500.com said: “The year-over-year decrease was mainly attributable to a decrease of RMB6 million (US$911,023) resulting from the temporary suspension of operations in Sweden in 2020, which was partially offset by an increase of RMB2.8 million (US$425,144) in sports information services in China started in early 2020.”

Revenues from the Swedish subsidiary had generated approximately 89.7 per cent of the company’s total net revenues for the fiscal year ending December 31.

During this quarter the lottery services provider also completed an internal investigation into a scandal in which the firm was accused of bribing Japanese lawmaker Tsukasa Akimoto in a bid to get insight into Japan’s IR policy.

The investigation ultimately concluded there was not sufficient basis to establish a violation of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 in connection with the company’s prior activities in Japan.

The company will hold a general meeting on November 25 to discuss the results.