Taipei Fubon Bank wins bid to issue sports lottery tickets (Roundup)

Sep 3, 2007, 9:58 GMT

Taipei - Taiwan's Taipei Fubon Bank on Monday won the bid to become the first-ever issuer of sports lottery tickets when the island launches sports gambling next year, officials said.

'Taipei Fubon Bank has been rated as the top among the three candidates,' a Finance Ministry spokesman said.

The ministry held the final selection meeting Monday to review the applications from the three finalists: the Chinatrust Commercial Bank, Bank of Kaohsiung and Taipei Fubon Bank.

Ministry officials said Fubon - which invited the Hong Kong Jockey Club, which operates horse racing in Hong Kong, as its consultant - would get a six-year license to operate sports gambling starting April 15.

The sports lottery is to cover betting on sports such as US and Taiwan baseball, US professional basketball, horse racing and car racing.

Taiwan launched a public welfare lottery in 2000 to benefit the disabled by allowing them to sell lottery tickets but decided to launch sports gambling to use the proceeds to promote sports and stimulate the economy.

Analysts predicted that the lottery could bring in 20 billion Taiwan dollars (600 million US dollars) in revenues each year, about one-fourth of the revenues from the public welfare lottery.

Foreign lottery providers are looking into Taiwan's sports lottery so that they could supply the software and hardware for Taiwan's sports gambling.