Taipei Fubon Bank (台北富邦銀行), a division of Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), the nation's second-biggest financial services provider, was yesterday awarded the nation's first license to operate a sports lottery through 2013.
Taipei Fubon, which won the nation's first license to run the Public Welfare Lottery in 2002, beat out its competitors in yesterday's bid by a small margin, the Ministry of Finance said.
Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託銀行), a division of Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中國信託金控), and Bank of Kaohsiung (高雄銀行) fell at the final hurdle. Chinatrust Commercial operates the nation's Public Welfare Lottery, while Bank of Kaohsiung had been regarded as a strong competitor because of its close ties with the Democratic Progressive Party.
"The sports lottery is more complicated than the Public Welfare Lottery. Players will need to understand sports [to win the jackpot]," Richard Yang (楊瑞東), a vice president of Taipei Fubon, said after the ministry announced its decision yesterday.
Bidders for the sports lottery forecast that it would generate roughly NT$20 billion (US$606 million) in annual revenues -- a quarter of the revenues generated by the Public Welfare Lottery.
Taipei Fubon Bank has appointed the Hong Kong Jockey Club, which operates horse racing in Hong Kong, as its consultant. Yang said this had been one of the major factors behind the bank's success in winning the right to operate the sports lottery.
The sports lottery will facilitate betting on several sports, including baseball in Taiwan and the US, US basketball, horse racing and car racing.
Yang said Taipei Fubon, which has 200 outlets nationwide, would now select lottery equipment suppliers, finalize channel deployment and appoint vendors.
Taipei Fubon is required to launch the sports lottery before April and to issue at least NT$4 billion in lottery tickets per year.
Chinatrust Commercial, which had teamed up with an Australian consultant, said it was determined to win the next round of bidding for the second sports lottery license.
"We will be back in six years to bid for a combined license to operate sports and charity lotteries. And we will win the bid," said Oliver Shang (
Shang said Taiwan Lottery would expand its range of products to fend off the competition from the sports lottery.
Shares of Fubon Financial rose 0.89 percent to NT$28.7, while those of Chinatrust Financial declined by 4.23 percent yesterday.
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