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commoditized on the back office and central systems side which
means that we should be able to be more cost efficient on the
technology side in the future.
The Mobile Revolution has been the single most transforma-
tional technology to enhance the customer experience. We are
now able to communicate directly and in real time with each
and every one of our customers, offering them a tailor-made
experience wherever they might be. Think of the future implica-
tions for us in mastering this and harnessing its full potential to
transform the player experience!
Vincent Pauly:
The most important thing is the market share
between smartphones/tablets and desktops. Now that more and
more customers are relying on their smartphones/tablets, we
need to have precise data that tells us how the consumer is con-
necting with us. In Luxembourg, for instance, as of the end of
2015, we have more (55%) smartphones/tablets than desktop
users. Here is the key for us. Smartphones/tablets represent a
great opportunity to also link our mobile customers in with our
retail POS. New technologies offer many options: geolocation,
SMS, Push notifications, etc. Loterie Nationale is in the process
of defining a strategy to accomplish that.
Recently, we have changed our mass e-mailing tool. The pre-
vious system was handled by our IT Department, on our own
servers, and was not able to provide e-mails in standards. The
new tool is a complete SaaS solution, with good analytics sys-
tems and also a 99% success of emails received. The new system
is also a tool that is constantly evolving. Now we are looking for
other possibilities with SaaS solutions and web-based solutions
for our other needs (system e-mails, etc.).
Jari Vähänen:
There is a lot of work to do in this area. Sys-
tem modularity with good internal APIs are the key to doing this.
Lottery needs to also build development knowledge for itself—you
can’t fully outsource this. Internal control is crucial when you guide
the development. You must also have knowledge of customer be-
havior and provide that data to all designers and developers. They
need to have visibility of the impacts of the changes they make.
And they have to have the ability to change things quickly. This
requires modular systems, the ability to monitor the behavior data
of customers, and the ability to create the next hypothesis for im-
provement based on the analytics.
The most important thing is how we can continuously de-
velop UE (User Experience) code. That development of the code
to optimize UE is based on analytics and agile methods. The
overall package includes a combination of data, data source, and
analytics to enhance direct marketing and make it personalized
service. It is technology-enabled. But the purpose is to enhance
the user experience. For instance, instead of banners that pro-
mote the product or game, we can now send out personalized
game offers that are much more likely to appeal to the player.
Ellen VandenBerghe:
The age of mass communication is
over. Thanks to better segmentation and personalized content,
our targeted email campaigns reached up to 36% sales increase
by contacting up to 56% less people. When 40% of your play-
ers consult your digital channels on a smartphone or tablet, it’s a
wake-up call to develop everything for mobile. So, we are focused
on everything related to the mobile experience (responsive web-
sites/emails, native apps, push notifications, web analytics, data
warehouses, etc.). Facebook is a powerful marketing tool and can
teach you a lot about targeting and personalization. Even if you
don’t believe in Facebook marketing, it will open your eyes and
show you how you should communicate on your own channels—
start from insights, look at the context and adjust your message.
You can identify the users of your website/app on Facebook and
can then adjust your message on Facebook based on that. For
example, you could launch a campaign to stimulate app down-
loads, but only to people that you have not seen before on your
app yet, but have seen on your mobile player’s website. Facebook
is a powerful marketing tool and can teach you a lot about target-
ing and personalization. Even if you don’t believe in Facebook
marketing, it will open your eyes and show you how you should
communicate on your own channels—start from insights, look at
the context and adjust your message.
What role might the technology of standardized APIs (Application
Program Interfaces) play for lotteries? Is there a potential for an
API solution to provide a central server shared by multiple lotteries
and retailers to reduce the cost and increase the speed for deploying
new games and technologies across multiple jurisdictions? Is this
important? Or maybe there are too many intractable obstacles for
practical implementation in the real-world?
Lene Finstad:
The API technology creates potential and acts
as a driver for economies of scale. We see this in all other busi-
nesses and in my view it is imperative for the Lottery industry
to actively seek co-operation to tap into this capability. A way to
enable the lotteries to increase their portfolios and decrease the
time to market is to encourage co-operation between lotteries
on co-development of game portfolios and maybe even imple-
mentation of the games.
Vincent Pauly:
A standardized API between Lotteries would
be a very good point for us. We are all selling similar games (like
Euro Millions or EuroJackpot). Many lotteries already devote
resources to produce in-house APIs. For Luxembourg, as we are
a small country, it would help us a lot to work with others and
share the costs of development and maintenance of APIs.
Jari Vähänen:
Multi-jurisdictional APIs are possible but not
very likely. There are no standards in the gaming business that
apply to a project like this, and many providers keep the other
businesses out with closed systems and closed APIs. Also, the
development of technologies is more rapid than our ability to
create standards that keep up with the changes. I don’t see it
happening. However, openly published APIs may help to create
some de facto standards which may lead to easier integrations.