Going from strength to strength is the hoariest of cliches, but Ted Lin’s management of the Taiwan Sports Lottery recaptures the expression and invigorates it.
After suffering a slight decline in ticket sales in 2023, the Sports Lottery roared back in 2024, recording 8.5% growth and hitting a new record with NT$64.3 billion (US$2.1 billion) in gross sales, while the lottery’s “surplus” dedicated to sports investment grew 6.5% to a record NT$6.4 billion (US$209 million). Behind these numbers are other, salient metrics. The combination of COVID-driven innovation and wider market demand has “enriched” the product range, as Lin puts it, raising the number of bettable sports over the last decade from 16 to 26, including esports, as well as adding four in-play betting options, lifting bet types from 28 to 50, and expanding parlay betting from a maximum eight to 12 picks.
Online betting is also now available 24 hours, with an estimated online membership base of 340,000 by this December, while retail lottery operations are expanding their base from 2,600 shops nationwide to a predicted 2,700 at year’s end.
Lin’s philosophy is to not set limits on one’s ambitions, and with the FIFA World Cup approaching in 2026, the Sports Lottery is likely to continue outpacing the growth of its sibling Welfare Lottery and even up competition between them – something barely believable only a few years ago.
And the icing on the cake? Some 70% of Lin’s colleagues today were with the company when it launched the Sports Lottery in 2008, a remarkable retention rate in a skittish employment market.
