Internet firms lock horns over sports lotteries

Sports lottery sales have taken off with the ongoing World Cup, and China's Internet titans are battling for a piece of that action as each seeks to boost its respective share of the mobile payments market.

QQ Lottery, a vertical lottery sales channel under QQ, Tencent Holdings Ltd's popular instant messaging service, recently announced that it has temporarily blocked Alipay, the e-payment arm of rival Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, a move that stops QQ users from using Alipay to top up their betting accounts on QQ.

The Shenzhen-based Tencent, which may soon lose its title as China's largest Internet company by capitalization as Alibaba heads to what could be a record initial public offering in August, said in a statement to China Daily on Tuesday that it takes a long time for Alipay to transfer money to people's accounts, so it has decided to block Alipay temporarily for the sake of users' experience.