When the Taiwan Sports Lottery started operations, were the inexperienced outlet managers ready? President Lin Jun-Fu of the National Association of Lotto Sellers Trade Unions of the R.O.C., who co-runs outlets for the Taiwan Sports Lottery with friends both in Taipei and Kaohsiung, said in an anxious tone, “I’m looking forward to it on the one hand, but I’m also afraid to get hurt by it on the other hand. I think a difficult year ahead for the betting outlets is unavoidable from my point of view.”

"There’re only a little more than 80 outlet managers in the whole country who have already installed the necessary equipment and can start selling sports lottery tickets tomorrow. They are competing with each other to see who has the best interior decoration. I think the situation on the first day will be a big mess, just like when Bingo was put on the market recently and they ended up running Bingo games every 5 minutes from Monday to Sunday,” said Lin Jun-Fu the day before the startup of the new Sports Lottery.

"We estimate that they will need to spend at least 10 minutes per customer to explain how the Taiwan Sports Lottery runs. And we are also well prepared to be challenged by those who are expert customers,” said President Lu Xue-Yuan of the Association for the Promotion of Disabled Rights in Public Welfare Lotteries.

"Before it was determined that the Taiwan Sports Lottery would be put on the market, few of the disabled who now run outlets for the Taiwan Sports Lottery liked to watch sports. In order to provide customers with accurate predictions of the results of the games, they now watch live TV games and read information from the newspapers whenever they have the time.”

Because the commission agreement between Taipei Fubon Bank and its lottery outlets hasn’t been settled, in its early stages the Taiwan Sports Lottery can’t accept bets placed online or by phone. According to the experience of Hong Kong and Singapore, more than half of the total turnover has been bets from the Internet. Therefore, the market expectation in Taiwan is that the initial turnover from the lottery outlets will be relatively low. But there is a research survey that overturns this expectation.

The Center for the Study of Lottery and Commercial Gaming of NTUST was commissioned by the Sports Affairs Council of the Executive Yuan lately to conduct a survey. Of the 1071 interviewees who responded to this survey, 60.7% were in favor of betting at betting outlets in cash, followed by 37.0% of the interviewees who preferred purchasing lottery tickets on the Internet and 21.6% by cell phone or landline. In addition, some 15% of the interviewees supported interactive TV and PDA.—Based on a report in the China Times May 1, 2008.