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12 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 re-visit assumptions, re-define objectives, and organize inter-departmental teams to re- imagine solutions. For example, instead of calling the task force a “COVID crisis man- agement task force”, our V.P. of Marketing, Edie Frakes, named it “Gone Viral” to help us all get into the spirit of forward and positive momentum, rather than just dealing with a problem. Our V.P. of Finance, Rick Kelley, heads up this group and is fondly called Captain COVID. Rick and others like Rick are excited to be involved in areas somewhat outside their primary skill set. They embrace the opportunity to interface with leaders whose vocational discipline and perspective is different from theirs, to learn new things from them and from this process, and to work collaboratively to create new solutions and strategies. I feel that everyone on our team is discovering skills they did not know they had and is excited about the impact they are having on the ongoing success of the enterprise. Heavy reliance on inter-departmental task forces is definitely something we will continue into the post-COVID era. I should also point out that Marty Gibbs was the interim CEO through the initial months of the pandemic, assuming that role the second week of March. I was not appointed CEO until September. So, much of our pandemic response was undertaken by our senior team, under Marty’s leadership. This team has been very effective at sorting out the problems and obstacles, quickly addressing the short-term needs in a crisis and clarify- ing action-plans, as well as setting the stage for longer-term goals. Is it a priority to build out the cross-chan- nel promotional infrastructure that drives online players to retail and vice-versa? M. Harville: I would not describe it that way. At least at present, our priority is to give our players what they want, where they want it. We are extremely focused on modernizing at retail and truly optimizing the in-store player experience, particularly with TVMs and cashless functionality. We are doing everything we can to optimize the iLottery player experience too. And we will have cross-promotions that incent the players to interact with the Kentucky Lottery on all channels. But we do not presume to drive the players to play in any particular way, or on any particular channel, other than how and where they want to play. We simply want to give the consumer what they want, whenever and however and wherever they want it. The pandemic has shown us that all boats rise with the tide. Retailers and iLottery have both done well and that is because we focus on the customer, the lottery player, and not so much on achieving a pre-determined mix of channels or products. I Lottery has been successful, no doubt. But we remain committed to the success of our retailers. Many of our core players love playing at retail and we want these players to continue to feel that way, so we will always have a fabulous portfolio of lottery games that are only available at retail, and this includes our popular Fast Play games, introduced in 2019, and our new Kentucky Jackpot family of scratch off games, which offer a unique second chance promotion. The pandemic seems to have illuminated the fact that the consumer is more able and willing to migrate to new and different game categories. Is that a trend that will accelerate and, if so, what does it mean for traditional lottery? M. Harville: Yes, for sure, this trend will continue. It started several years ago. Many players and especially younger players do everything on their mobile smart phones, so offering the Kentucky Lottery app became a priority. Now, the pandemic has acceler- ated this trend and we see we must focus on improving our iLottery channel to be able to meet consumer expectations and compete with other, similar forms of entertain- ment. But we will remain committed to meeting consumer expectations at retail as well, because, as the pandemic has shown, many players will continue to purchase at retail. That being said, modernization of the retail channel is important to meet their changing expectations, including promoting our TVMs and cashless functionality, finding ways to tap into the new purchas- ing behaviors, like BOPUS, and, as well, offering products in new types of retailers. With effective modernization at retail, I believe lottery will continue to be the game that so many people love to play. Online is where the competi- tion will be intensifying. I think we can expect sports betting operators to raise the bar when it comes to online player attraction and retention strategies. What it means for lottery is that we need to raise our own game to deliver the best iLottery-playing experi- ence we can. We have been talking about external realities, and the need for customer-facing changes motivated by the pandemic. What about internal operational changes? M. Harville: Many of our operations are being re-assessed for opportunities to improve. An example is that we have closed our last regional office. We have effective retailer cashing agents that cash up to $5000, and several retailers throughout the state are designated as super cashing agents with authority to cash up to $25,000. We closed this regional office for the pandemic, and it soon became clear that we didn’t need that office at all. In addition, we discontinued the use of external auditors for our daily drawings. Our process is robust and built to ensure integrity without the application of external auditors. Even so, we continued to use auditors until COVID made that problematic. So COVID became the catalyst to doing what could have been done sooner. Pre-pandemic, we were still doing ball machine drawings for several games. RNG (Random Number Generator) was used PGRI INTERVIEWS Retailers and iLottery have both done well and that is because we focus on the customer, the lottery player, and not so much on achieving a pre-determined mix of channels or products. Continued on page 41