New lotto rules incite vitriolic response

Lotto ticket buyers are upset with TaipeiBank (台北銀行) for the bank's unilateral decision to randomly reduce sales of some popular four-number sets for the "Four-Star Lotto (四星彩)," KMT legislator Lin Yi-shih (林益世) said yesterday.

"Many buyers were shocked to know that some popular numbers, such as 4510 and 4717 for instance, were sold out as early as this morning," Lin said.

As the bank in charge of running the lotto, TaipeiBank shouldn't have revised rules of the game as it wished while ignoring buyers' interest, the lawmaker argued.

Lin urged the Ministry of Finance to revoke the bank's franchise after the incident.

Last Friday, TaipeiBank rushed to implement a contingency plan after local media revealed that lotto booth owners had discovered a loophole that guaranteed a net profit of NT$20,000 on bets worth NT$500,000 on Four-Star Lotto.

In order to increase the difficulty for booth owners to buy each of the lotto's 10,000 four-number sets, ranging from 0000 to 9999, TaipeiBank cut sales of some numbers from 1,000 to 100 tickets.

The bank defended its position yesterday, arguing that the numbers it chose were selected randomly in reference to sales, and would in no way harm lotto players, vice president Richard Yang (楊瑞東) said.

But Vice Minister of Finance Susan Chang (張秀蓮) said the ministry will look into the bank's actions to see if they meet regulatory guidelines.

TaipeiBank won a five-year deal to manage lotto sales in 2001.