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The sports lottery market is currently very large. According to a 2020 IBIS survey, global sports betting and lottery industry revenue could be $210.8 billion (USD) in 2021 (IBISWorld, 2020). Meanwhile, the market grew 0.5% per year between 2016 and 2021 (see Appendix 1). Technology has changed betting behaviors and online sports betting has grown rapidly worldwide (Killick & Griffiths, 2019; Lopez-Gonzalez and Griffiths, 2016). In addition, Chiu, Lee, Liu and Liu (2012) stated that more and more people will accept online sports lottery. Mao, Zhang & Connaughton (2015) believed that sports betting is the most popular lottery in the world. Hence, online betting/sports lottery is an essential issue to investigate. More than 120 countries promote sports lotteries since their ventures are primarily used to fund the development of physical education and sports and for the improvement of sports facilities (Forrest & Simmons, 2003; Liu, Tsai, Fang, & Liu, 2019). As the sustained development of modern technology has led to an 80% web surfing rate among the Taiwanese population, the Taiwan Sports Lottery (TSL) developed and built an online betting system in 2014. The TSL enables sports betters to learn the most updated information about sports events and to bet online without time or location constraints.
The purpose of this study is to propose a framework to examine the behaviors of online sports lottery consumers in Taiwan. The number of online betting customers and the percentage of betting increased after the TSL started virtual online betting in April 2014. The willingness of consumers to accept such innovative technologies in such a brief time is why TAM is applied as an indicator to explain the willingness of consumers to use a specific technology (Chiu, Lee, Liu & Liu, 2012; Davis, 1989). After Davis (1989) conducted his applied research on the TAM, numerous researchers implemented it to indicate and explain the acceptance of new informational technologies. The TAM has also been applied to numerous research fields. Indeed, the volume of related research is so large that the TAM has become a popular orientation in recent research on information management. The TAM is widely used in information and management fields like e-learning systems (Persico, Manca, & Pozzi, 2014), mobile banking services (Alsamydai, 2014), and learning management systems in higher education institutions (Fathema, Shannon, & Ross, 2015). Chiu, Lee, Liu and Liu (2012) adopted the theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to discover the relationship between performance expectancy and social influence; their study focused on market segment and internet experiences. Hur, Ko, and Caussen (2011) developed the Sports Website Acceptance Model (SWAM), but have yet to examine it. Mahan (2011) analyzed consumers’ preferences for using digital social media (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) for marketing physical education institutions, with a special focus on the field of sports. Consequently, the current study applied the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to understand the acceptance of alternative betting approaches among sports lottery betters in Taiwan.
The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is well-developed and adopted in a variety of fields. Based on TAM, we added four antecedents - subjective norm, computer anxiety, computer self-efficacy, and personal innovativeness - to explore the behaviors of online sports lottery consumers. Venkatesh and Davis (1996) suggested the antecedents of perceived ease of use were important. Through our research, previous studies (Chiu, Lee, Liu, & Liu, 2012) can be improved and the adopted antecedents can be applied to the technology environment.