Winning at retail remains central to lottery’s success. A full suite of solutions developed by IGT enables far-reaching retail transformation strategies for lotteries. Renato Ascoli and Melissa Pursley discuss the possibilities.
By IGT (International Game Technology)
Published September 11, 2024
It’s “go” time for applying a new strategic vision for lottery at retail: A host of new solutions is poised to drive ambitious, forward-looking retail strategies – from how lottery products are sold in stores, to how individual lotteries optimize their portfolio and distribution, apply data and insights, communicate with players, and generate excitement for the lottery brand.
“Our customers’ needs drive IGT’s product roadmaps and our significant R&D investments, informed by consumer insights and trend data,” says Renato Ascoli, IGT Chief Executive Officer, Global Lottery. “To support lotteries’ efforts to modernize, we set the bar high for our development teams in recent years. We charged them to think boldly and evolve nearly all aspects of the lottery path to purchase with a forward-looking suite of solutions. As these new, integrated retail and digital solutions enter the market, lotteries are seeing how our product roadmaps have been carefully orchestrated to provide them with solutions that work together to help them pursue new growth strategies.
“The retail channel continues to hold major growth potential,” he continues. “To support lotteries in capturing that opportunity, we didn’t look at one product or another in isolation. We took a broader approach, based on how retail is changing and how consumer shopping behavior and payment options are changing, and we connected the dots. We mapped out solutions that are flexible, that complement one another and produce more useful data for advanced analytics – from terminals all the way through to next-generation self-service, in-lane, and mobile.
“You can offer all of these options to players to support engagement, or select which make sense for a given retailer’s current footprint or a lottery’s expansion into new environments. You can deploy IGT’s Connected Play solution to digitalize the retail experience, even if not regulated to sell in the digital channel, and capture previously unavailable player-behavior data to personalize the lottery experience. You can implement more targeted player marketing and support a connected, 360-degree lottery experience for players. You can support sustainability initiatives and players’ changing preferences by offering paperless and cashless options for lottery.”
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Behind all of these solutions (detailed further below) are IGT’s people. “Our service teams are able to provide customers with an unmatched level of support with the use of proprietary data-based intelligence tools,” says Ascoli.
IGT’s investments in this area include Lottery Data Cloud (LDC) – an internal, cloud-based, advanced analytics platform that brings together seemingly disparate sets of data from cross-jurisdictional and cross-functional data sources, including a dashboard for multi-state jackpot performance. LDC uses machine-learning technologies to help IGT analysts find correlations and apply the insights to help customers derive business value from them. It can be engaged for a wide range of applications.
Another unique tool, which is used by IGT teams to support customers with retail optimization, is the company’s Retail Market Insights® (RMI) database. It provides data on more than 85% of U.S. traditional lottery sales via 176,000+ U.S. lottery retailers. RMI gives participating lotteries and retailer decision makers the tools to analyze lottery performance trends within and across jurisdictions, including comparing retailer and geographic attributes that impact performance to identify consumer trends and optimize existing lottery locations.
In the instants space, IGT recognized several years ago that the system for producing scratch tickets was ripe for reimagining. IGT invested in designing a revolutionary, patented new security system, NextGen, which links every process in instant ticket development to a common, coherent database and an associated blockchain for each game.
“With the combined capabilities of IGT’s NextGen programming platform and Infinity Instants™ digital printing platform, we can provide players with new, highly engaging instants play mechanics that can’t be replicated with traditional printing technologies,” notes Ascoli. IGT is also adding a new press to its North American instants production facility in Lakeland, Florida. Due to launch in 2025, the new press is another example of IGT’s continued investment to better serve current and future industry needs.
Solution Specifics
Distribution
“What’s exciting about retail and the future are several opportunities for further success on the distribution side,” says Melissa Pursley, IGT Senior Vice President, Lottery Product & Sales Development. “Channel engagement and channel optimization will continue to be key priorities for lotteries. When I think about some of the analytics tools IGT has built by leveraging our new Lottery Data Cloud, what stands out is the ability to get more granular and specific in providing recommendations to lotteries. An example of this includes supporting lotteries on their vending penetration goals and pinpointing the optimal vending locations within a retail space. We’re using it to help IGT analysts accurately identify where those opportunities are for customers in individual jurisdictions.
“Channel expansion is also critical as we look to the future,” adds Pursley. “One of the tools that we believe will help enable those expansion plans is our new product LotteryLink, available next year. LotteryLink solves an enormous need for the industry by allowing for a more seamless connection between a retailer’s points of sale and the central gaming system, which will enable in-lane sales for draw games and, even more exciting, scratch-offs.”
Game Innovation
“Cash Pop™, IGT’s successful new draw-based game, stands as one of our growth-driving game innovations,” says Pursley. “This game has now launched in 14 U.S. jurisdictions and is selling at an average weekly per capita of $0.11 in 2024, with more jurisdictions onboarding this year and next. Lotteries that have already seen success with Cash Pop are now working with us to develop and launch new game enhancements.”
For example, the Georgia Lottery Corporation launched a $10 price point for Cash Pop in June, and sales are up 47.1% over the same period the prior year. At the same time, the Georgia Lottery also launched an all-new instant win component at retail, giving players a chance to instantly win two times their base wager amount on every “Pop” purchased for no additional cost. And the New Jersey lottery, which was the first to launch Cash Pop, will be introducing the $20 price point in the coming months. It’s expected to be a strong performer, as research and actual play in the state show many players enjoy playing at higher price points.
“Our core growth pillars include the evolution of our scratch game portfolio, in terms of both diversity and the price-point expansion that is continuing across North America,” says Pursley. “In this space, IGT’s Infinity Instants™ games represent something very exciting – lotteries are beginning to leverage the new game mechanics and prize structures made possible through Infinity technology, and which link to how the prize is revealed to provide new player experiences. Jurisdictions are seeing the creative possibilities and designing and deploying the games in a multitude of ways, including omnichannel offerings.”
Other omnichannel opportunities enabled by IGT teams include bringing fast play and scratch-off offerings together. Last summer, Indiana simultaneously launched both Fast Play and scratch-off Wheel of Fortune games, together with linked second-chance opportunities. It was the first time the Hoosier Lottery offered a second chance experience with its Fast Play games, which led to impressive results. The Lottery garnered over 223,000 entries into the second chance promotion, and it was the most successful $5 Fast Play game launched within the past eight years. Additionally, myLOTTERY members were able to participate in exclusive Wheel of Fortune digital games for free through Hoosier’s player program.
“And we're proud of the efforts of our IGT teams to support the enhancements coming to the Mega Millions game in April,” says Pursley. “We look forward to working with lotteries to drive sales from the new positioning of Mega Millions in the market.”
Product R&D
“I’m also incredibly proud of the level of investment we continue to make in enabling future opportunities at retail,” adds Pursley. This year, the market saw the release of IGT’s Retailer Pro S2 terminal – providing cutting-edge technology for high-volume retailers in a much smaller footprint than the previous Pro – and IGT’s new Digital Menu Board, which offers a sleek, modern way to showcase lottery offerings and promotional content at the point of sale. The Digital Menu Board’s integrated communication with the lottery central system means that all changes inputted to IGT retail terminals result in near-real-time updates to the digital menu based on activated packs for sale.
“Two areas that have been a specific focus for our R&D are innovation within self-service and innovation to enable in-lane from a self-service perspective,” notes Pursley. “We’ve spent quite a bit of focus and time developing an all-new lottery vending machine, which we expect to launch next year. And IGT’s LotteryLink solution, mentioned earlier, is completely unique in the industry in enabling a more seamless process for in-lane sales. The product is in the final testing phase now, prior to rollout, and offers a breakthrough in retail sales especially for corporate and high-volume retailers anywhere in world.
“We’re also invested in continuous improvement with our Data and Insights solution to provide lotteries with business intelligence across all sales channels via highly interactive dashboards, which supply lottery employees with at-a-glance answers to important business questions.”
Player Engagement
“In addition to the work we’re doing to drive promotion with players in the digital channel, we can also support lotteries in driving player engagement with IGT’s Connected Play solution,” says Pursley. “As Renato discussed, Connected Play digitalizes the retail lottery experience and makes it possible to offer players unique promotions and messaging based on new and previously unavailable player-behavior data.”
Looking Ahead
“It’s such an interesting time for the industry, where lotteries have enjoyed record after record returns as a result of careful planning and portfolio optimization, as well as the unexpected impacts of the pandemic,” observes Pursley, reflecting on the year and a half since taking on her current role. “When I look to the future, what excites me is our continued focus and our passion to dig deeper than the obvious solutions to support lottery customers’ growth.”
Adds Renato Ascoli, who will be inducted into the Lottery Industry Hall of Fame as a member of the Class of 2024: “The recently announced transaction to separate IGT Lottery from IGT’s Gaming and Digital business units serves as another strategic step toward optimizing our lottery product offerings and enhancing the service and value we provide to customers. I believe the lottery industry is entering a breakthrough phase in modernization. As a global pure play lottery company, we’re positioning ourselves to be more agile and responsive as we bring to market compelling, growth-driving solutions across the whole lottery value chain. The future of the lottery industry is bright, and our new structure will support our ability to identify and enable further lottery-business growth opportunities that will benefit customers for years to come as they generate funds for good causes worldwide.”
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