China’s Sports-Lottery Site 500.Com Files For $150 Million IPO In The US

500.com Ltd., a Chinese online sports-lottery operator, filed for an initial public offering, or IPO, on Tuesday in the U.S., expecting to raise $150 million.

According to the regulatory filing, 500.com has applied to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE, under the ticker symbol, WBAI. The IPO will be managed by Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE:DB) and the company plans to utilize the proceeds from the public offer toward technology upgrades and for marketing purposes. The company did not indicate how many American depositary shares, or ADS, it would offer or at what price the share would be pegged, according to a report from Bloomberg, which added that the offering size is used as a placeholder for calculating registration fees and may change.

500.com had announced its IPO plans along with two other public offers from fellow Chinese internet businesses -- 58.com Inc. and Qunar Cayman Islands Ltd. -- which are expected to complete their own offerings by the end of this month, Bloomberg reported.

And, if the offerings of both 58.com and Qunar Cayman Islands are completed, they will take the total number of IPOs by Chinese companies in the U.S. this year to five, which is more than double the size of the number of Chinese IPOs in 2012.

500.com, which is based in Shenzhen city in southern China's Guangdong Province, offers betting services online as well as through mobile applications. The company is claimed to have more than doubled its user base to 18.4 million by the end of September this year, from 8.8 million at the end of 2010.

In the nine-month period ended in September, 500.com’s net income nearly doubled to 20.6 million yuan ($3.4 million) from a year earlier, and the company’s sales increased 25 percent to 163.4 million yuan ($26.8 million) during the same period. Founded in 2001, 500.com initially filed for the IPO confidentially on Dec. 7, 2012.

Other than 500.com, another Chinese company Sungy Mobile Ltd. a Guangzhou-based provider of mobile applications, also filed for an IPO in the U.S. to raise $80 million. The company has applied to be listed on the NYSE under the ticker symbol, GOMO, and the offering will be managed by Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM)