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// PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL // November/December 2016
Paul Jason:
Any insights revealed
in the after-action report that might help
your colleagues going forward? Anything
you would do differently if you had it to
do over again? Strategies that engendered a
cooperative approach and support between
your different partners, Scientific Games
and IGT?
Gregg Edgar:
To begin, I want to
focus on the last part of that question.
Our online contract was awarded in
August 2015, about six months prior to
my appointment as Executive Director.
Scientific Games did an excellent job
coming onboard and organizing what
amounted to a one year process of con-
version. Their project plan was fantas-
tic and really—in the end—our Lottery
conversion team, Scientific Games and
IGT coalesced into an extremely effec-
tive team to make this conversion hap-
pen. I feel that one of the reasons that it
did go so well is that we made the deci-
sion to keep IGT as a vested partner in
PUBLIC GAMING
INTERVIEWS
Gregg
EDGAR
Executive Director, Arizona Lottery
Lessons Learned in System Conversion
PGRI Introduction:
On his first day as the Executive Director of the Arizona
Lottery in March, Director Edgar learned that the Lottery would undergo a full
system conversion in August—an interesting prospect for a new Director. For-
tunately, the Arizona Lottery had the right team in place to accomplish this ag-
gressive task. Working closely with Scientific Games (SGI) and IGT, the Arizona
Lottery conversion team had developed a seamless exchange of terminal tech-
nology capabilities. While many state lotteries have gone through this challenge,
the unique aspect of Arizona’s conversion is that both companies remained in
market, managing the heart of its business operations. The following discussion
drills down on the details of the ‘after-action’ report which describes the most
interesting aspects of the conversion.
Gregg Edgar was appointed to lead the Arizona Lottery in March, four months
shy of the Lottery’s 35th anniversary. He had been running Edgar Strategic Com-
munications for the previous two years. Prior to that, he was Chief Operating
Officer at Gordon C. James Public Relations where he served for the previous
twenty years.
the process by extending our warehouse
and distribution contract which also
contained our vending contract.
While many state lotteries have gone
through this technology transfer chal-
lenge, the unique aspect of Arizona’s con-
version is that both companies remained
in our market, managing the heart of our
business operations with redefined roles:
IGT remains as our system of record for
instant games, while Scientific Games has
taken over our draw game capabilities.
That decision placed both vendors into
a position that they were each a partner
in the other’s success and in the end a
partner in Arizona Lottery’s success.
Now, that decision came with its share
of challenges as well. The marriage of the
two systems created the need for a unique
information pass-through capability from
Scientific Games’ Wave and Flair termi-
nals to IGT’s backend instant system in
order to manage and validate instant tick-
ets. When our IGT Gemini Ultra vend-
ing machines begin rolling into market in
January, this pass-through capability will
allow IGT to sell and validate draw game
tickets through Scientific Games’ system.
It’s a unique configuration that maps to
our business environment.
We had an expectation that we would