Electronics retail giant Alibaba is set to acquire a 60 per cent stake in Chinese lottery firm AGTech Holdings, as the suspension of online lottery sales are expected to be lifted sometime in 2016, official China Daily newspaper reports.
The deal, valued at $US308 million ($A413.01 million), will be carried out by Ali Fortune Investment Holding, 60 per cent of which is owned by Alibaba and 40 per cent is owned by its financial services arm Ant Small.
The acquisition will give Ali Fortune 59.45 per cent shares of AGTech, a company with 200 employees engaged in lottery distribution and gaming technologies including game software and hardware.
AGTech said it "will benefit significantly" from its investor's technical services and resources such as cloud computing services and e-commerce, once online lottery sales are legalised again.
Until 2015, there were around 400 online lottery firms, accounting for more than one-fifth of total annual sales.
In April 2015, the government banned online sale of lottery tickets in its attempt to regulate the sector, which led to a 3.8 per cent drop in lottery sales in the country, following 11 consecutive years of growth, according to the Finance Ministry.
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