Chinese government approves AGTech’s virtual football

Sports lottery gaming company AGTech Holdings Limited, together with its subsidiaries, announced Thursday that its virtual football televised sports lottery game has received national approval from the PRC Ministry of Finance.

The game has been classified by the National Sports Lottery Administration Centre as a sports betting game and will accordingly operate with a 69 percent payout ratio, the highest payout category in China.

AGTech subsidiary Asia Gaming Technologies (Beijing) Co., Ltd. has entered into a long-term agreement with Jiangsu Sports Lottery Administration Centre to provide the game and its underlying system and services on a revenue-sharing basis.

AGT is AGTech’s long-standing joint venture with the UK’s online and land gambling Ladbrokes group.

The Virtual Football product joins the AGT’s popular and successful Lucky Racing game as one of only two nationally-approved, rapid-draw, fixed-odds virtual sports lottery games in China.

Televised in sports lottery stores, Virtual Football will offer a high frequency of betting opportunities with four matches every twenty minutes.

The game will offer punters advanced animated graphics, exciting audio commentary and similar betting types to National Sports Lottery Administration Centre’s fixed odds sports lottery product, Jing Cai, such as half time and full time outcome (win, lose, draw); correct score; total goals; and accumulators.

All bets will offer players a fixed odds payout (i.e. not pool betting).

Jiangsu is the leading province in China’s sports lottery market and China is the second largest lottery market in the world. In 2012, Jiangsu recorded sports lottery sales of over RMB16 billion, ranking as the number one province nationally with a 14.6 percent market share.

The Ministry of Finance approval covers the initial launch of Virtual Football in Jiangsu, with the National Sports Lottery Administration Centre fully involved in the initial launch process. Once the initial launch in Jiangsu succeeds, AGT will work with NSLAC to effect the national roll-out of the game.

John Sun, chairman and CEO of AGTech, said Thursday: “The introduction of Virtual Football in Jiangsu represents a very significant development for the Group in terms of both geographical and product development. It confirms virtual fixed odds sports betting as a proven concept: a fully accepted, rapidly growing, multi-product game category in China.”

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