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// PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL // November/December 2016
W
hen NOVOMATIC completed the acquisition of Betware,
the world’s first state lottery internet solution provider, just
two years ago, we already had plans to change the industry. In 2014
Betware became NOVOMATIC Lottery Solutions (NLS) and began
to unleash a wave of disruptive as well as sustaining innovations to
invigorate the lottery technology market.
Fortified with a team made up of experienced lottery profession-
als and pure technology experts, backed by a highly successful gam-
ing parent company, the NLS team immediately got to work to
bring lottery operators new options in future-ready solutions. In
retail, we targeted the need for:
• Increased security and reduced time to market
• More freedom with platform and hardware independent
terminal solutions
• Open, modern architecture that guarantees easy integration
to 3rd party systems and games
• Being present everywhere there is a point of sale (POS)—
BYOT (Bring your own Terminal) a term NLS brought to
the market
• Facilitating a seamless retail lottery experience via the true
NLS Omni-channel solution
• Growing lottery sales networks with lower cost and faster
deployment time
• Establishing easy and secure connectivity through standard
APIs (e.g. payment systems)
The first step in resolving any problem is knowing what the
problem is. Knowing of the technology roadblocks that have lim-
ited lottery evolution propelled NLS problem-solving solution de-
velopment. NLS has delivered a whole new approach, involving
both disruptive and sustaining technologies. Ours is not a mono-
lith, constantly redeveloped and modified, our system is new from
the ground up, using modern, up to date technologies as well as
modern, up to date processes.
We are succeeding in meeting our targets and bringing new
choices to our lottery partners. Case in point, on April 1, 2016 the
first phase of the technologically advanced NLS lottery system went
online for the Spanish Loteria de Catalunya. The Catalunya system
uses our cutting-edge Omni-Channel solution that includes inter-
net and mobile access to connect the lottery's entire retail estate,
employing the most modern point of sales devices and telecom-
munications infrastructure.
We have developed NLS POS Embedded, a hardware-indepen-
dent, sophisticated application that allows lotteries to expand their
sales network and be present where players shop. The new NLS In-
stant Ticket Vending Machine (ITVM) offers advanced features and
benefits never seen before in self-service gaming. Our Omni Chan-
nel solution uses APIs to be completely open to 3rd party content.
But does the successful development of these essential, technolog-
ically advanced solution features change the lottery paradigm? Yes.
• Lottery is no longer tied to a specific retail terminal. Each lottery
operator can chose the perfect hardware/terminal for every shop
size, tablets for smaller shops with less revenue, a sophisticated,
full-featured lottery terminal for a high-street shop, a sophisti-
cated IVTM for additional consumer behavior tracking at a Big
Box store.
Are you still asking,
“Who ARE these people?!”
Regardless of the hardware which is used on the POS,
software updates can be easily implemented across all devices
with the press of one button.