Taipei, Feb. 10 (CNA) Riding on the craze for NBA’s newest sensation Jeremy Lin, Taiwan Sports Lottery (TSL) will soon introduce new betting products linked to him or his team the New York Knicks, a corporate executive said Friday.

“We have formed a task force to collect reference data for designing relevant betting options,” TSL General Manager Hung Ju-min.

Since Lin — the first American-born NBA player of Taiwanese descent — took the league by storm this week, TSL has received numerous requests from many of its distributors to offer Lin- or Knicks-related wagers, according to Hung.

“However, because Lin is still playing a limited number of games, we need one to two weeks to design the betting options,” Hung said.

There are many Knicks-related betting options already available, including bets against point spread, on totals and money line, Hung said.

But TSL may offer a new type of wagers, he added.

Lin, an undrafted point guard from Harvard, has led the Knicks to three straight wins, scoring more than 20 points in each game.

His spectacular rise is making Knicks games highly popular among TV viewers in Asia, according to U.S. media reports.

Citing NBA staff, an AP report said Thursday that the league’s Asian TV partners have added Knicks games to their broadcast schedules.

“Sina in China will show Friday’s game against the Lakers, while stations in Taiwan will televise Knicks games this month against Toronto, Sacramento, New Orleans, New Jersey and Atlanta. ESPN Philippines also added the Feb. 17 Hornets game in New York,” according to the report.

Meanwhile, ESPN Taiwan said Thursday it will broadcast live the Knicks game against the Los Angeles Lakers from 9 a.m. Saturday.

In addition, the sports channel said it will hold a viewing party for the game at Core Pacific Living Mall Saturday morning. It will mark the first time that a local TV channel has ever hosted a viewing party for Lin.

Over the past few days, ESPN has been rebroadcasting Lin’s three breakout games on late shows, which have all received good ratings, the channel staff said.

(By Tien Yu-pin and Sofia Wu)
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