Intralot to Buy 21% of Melco LottVentures on Chinese Gambling

By Aaron Pan

Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Intralot SA, the world's second- biggest gambling services provider, agreed to buy 21 percent of Lawrence Ho's Melco LottVentures Ltd. for HK$305 million ($39 million) because of rising lottery-ticket sales in China.

Melco LottVentures will issue new shares and convertible bonds to Athens-based Intralot, it said in a Hong Kong stock exchange statement today. The company controls a venture that runs over 500 venues for the official China Sports Lottery Administration Centre and also makes lottery-vending terminals.

The deal teams Intralot with Ho, the son of Macau gaming magnate Stanley Ho, as it looks to expand in China and the rest of Asia. Intralot will become the second-largest shareholder in Melco LottVentures, after Ho's Melco International Development Ltd., once the transaction is fully completed.

``We are confident that through this partnership, we will be more successful in the highly promising Chinese market,'' Constantinos Antonopoulos, Intralot's chief executive officer, said in an e-mailed statement.

To contact the reporter for this story: Aaron Pan in Hong Kong at Apan8@bloomberg.net.