Taiwan Lottery Co on Friday unveiled its annual Super Red Envelope (2,000萬超級紅包), the most popular Lunar New Year scratch card, which has NT$20 million (US$607,589) prizes, the highest amount of any scratch card.
Taiwan Lottery president Hsieh Chih-hung (謝志宏) said that the Super Red Envelope cards, marking the Year of the Snake, are to be sold for NT$2,000 each.
There are 10 top prizes, the most in the lottery’s history, he said.
Photo: CNA
In addition to the NT$20 million prizes, scratch card buyers would also have a chance to win one of 1,200 NT$1 million prizes, the second prize, Hsieh said.
Accompanied by pop singer Crowd Lu (盧廣仲), who is to appear in TV ads promoting the Lunar New Year scratch cards, Hsieh said more than NT$17.2 billion was up for grabs from the Super Red Envelope cards.
In the past, the second prize was NT$2 million in cash plus a sport utility vehicle, but a survey found that people preferred receiving cash so Taiwan Lottery increased the number of cash prizes, Hsieh said.
Hsieh said 69.33 percent of participants would win something.
Taiwan Lottery said it has also introduced five other scratch cards for the Lunar New Year lottery, all of which went on sale on Friday even though the Year of the Snake does not begin until Jan. 29.
Hsieh said the Golden Snake Awards (金蛇獎) scratch cards would cost NT$500 each and offer 13 top prizes of NT$3 million. Every purchaser is guaranteed to win something.
Meanwhile, A Handful of Banknotes (鈔票一把抓) would cost NT$300 each and there are eight top prizes worth NT$3 million, with 37 percent of those who buy one winning something, Hsieh said.
The NT$200 New Year Market card would have six top prizes of NT$2 million and one-third of those who purchase one would win something, he said.
Hsieh said the prizes from the six card types are worth more than NT$23.8 billion in total — the highest ever.
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