New lotteries hope to boost ticket sales

To boost sales of mini-lotteries, Taipei Bank (台北銀行) is slated to launch two new scratch-off lottery tickets today -- "Homerun" (全壘打) and "Magician" (魔術師) -- with a jackpot of between NT$300,000 and NT$800,000.

To boost interest in the tickets, baseball fans who watch Chinese Professional Baseball League (中華職棒) games on the Videoland Sports Channel (緯來體育台) in the next four weeks will be given a chance to win 10 NT$100 Homerun tickets by calling 020-304-868 whenever a home run is hit.

"A total of 20 winners will be picked from among callers within the first 10 minutes each time a home run is hit," the bank's vice president, Richard Yang (楊瑞東), said yesterday.

Those who buy Homerun tickets will have a 24 percent chance of winning prizes that range from NT$100 to NT$800,000; while purchasers of Magician tickets will have about a 30 percent chance of winning prizes that range from NT$100 to NT$300,000, Yang said.

According to Yang, sales of mini-lotto tickets are on the wane, with sales of the "Good-times" lotto (吉時樂) dropping by 16 percent. To stimulate ticket sales, Yang said, the bank is planning to kick-start several promotional measures by collaborating with commercial sponsors, including Volvo Cars Taiwan.

Yang revealed that, in October, Volvo will offer million-dollar sedans as bonuses to each of the six "Good-times" lotto jackpot winners.