Public Gaming November/December 2020

11 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020 legislatures or to start the iLottery process, or already moving towards launch. Let’s start with those on the frontlines with lotteries and then move to the commercial partners that create and support the platforms. STATE LOTTERY OPERATORS With product, marketing, research and iLottery under her purview at the Pennsyl- vania Lottery, Stephanie Weyant undertakes a fair amount of multi-tasking each day. But with traditional sales channels taking a hit during the initial COVID19 restrictions, the spotlight was rmly on the lottery’s iLottery platform, which initially launched in 2018. “We felt very fortunate to have iLottery during the height of the COVID19 pandemic. Having our Draw Games online gave players an alternative during stay-at- home orders,” she said. “It didn’t entirely close the gap for the loss of traditional sales, but it helped. And overall, just before our second-year anniversary, we hit the $1 billion mark in top line online play.” at’s quite the rapid beeline to a billion dollars in online sales. What does Stephanie owe to Pennsylvania’s great success? Actually, she believes that the seeds of their iLottery success were planted more than 10 years ago. “Around 2009, we started getting our digital infrastructure in place, building our online community, social media followers, VIP Club, our app and then a mobile friendly website,” she said. “ e great thing about all these component parts of our iLottery program – and something I think lotteries should keep in mind – is that most of these digital activities can be done without any kind of legislation. A lottery can just launch them to support the mission of connect- ing with its audience of traditional lottery players. Of course, you are also laying the groundwork for the eventual launch of online sales and iLottery activity. “Take our VIP Players Club, for example. We’ve o ered the Club for many years and we’ve been building the database of members. When we nally launched iLottery, we had a database of around 750,000 to whom we could market the program. Today, there are more than one million members of our Club. It makes for a powerful marketing tool.” About 700 miles south of the Pennsylvania Lottery, Gretchen Corbin has seen her iLottery activity continue to grow. Mission- critical to their iLottery agenda was that the online connection augment and help its retailers, and not hurt the lottery’s traditional sales avenues and retail partners. e Georgia Lottery launched its iLottery platform in 2012, but it has only been the past few years that the lottery has started to o er the full array of online lottery products. e increase in online o erings in Georgia has certainly helped the lottery’s bottom line. But Gretchen has been careful to always remember the importance of their No. 1 sales avenue – retailers. “From a traditional lottery and corporate mission perspective, retailers are our best friends,” she said. “We wanted to make sure every- thing we did in the iLottery platform was communicated to our channel partners, that retailers understood what we were doing and why it was a good thing for them as well. “To no one’s surprise at the Lottery, iLottery acted as a cross-promotional piece for the traditional retailers. When our iLottery sales have grown, our brick and mortar retailers’ sales have grown as well. Building this mutually reinforcing synergy between the di erent channels is so vital to the sustain- able growth of iLottery in the future.” e new kid on the iLottery block is Virginia. While always keeping in mind the importance of traditional retail locations, the Commonwealth refused to let the headwinds of retailer resistance stop the Virginia Lottery’s e orts. In fact, retailer campaigns to block iLottery had e ectively stopped prior e orts by Virginia until the legislature placed iLottery within a sweeping set of expanded gaming opportunities, including sports gambling and casinos. As Executive Director, Kevin remained focused on iLottery, even as the political winds were blowing in the direction of the Virginia Lottery overseeing the other new forms of gaming headed his way. His sta had worked too hard for too many years to not keep up the ght, particularly with victory seemingly close in hand. “We were having many circular conversa- tions with our retail network, and it was not very productive,” he said. “We showed them the data from Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia, and how other lotteries saw strengthened brick and mortar sales after iLottery launched. e relevance of the overall brand is strengthened with iLottery, and that bene ts retailers, too. Just three months after launch, we’re certainly seeing that in Virginia.” Also positive has been the nancial results seen by the Virginia Lottery. e lottery ended the rst quarter of its current scal year (July – September 2020) with more than $121.5 million in online play, shat- tering its iLottery sales projections for the entire rst year by 56%. By the end of its rst quarter, iLottery quickly grew to represent 18% of the Virginia Lottery’s total sales portfolio. Kevin is optimistic about the growth of iLottery, while also keeping his eye on the land-based retail network. “We catapulted out of the gate with iLottery, and we’re already seeing that it lifts both the digital and traditional sides of the business,” he said. “Now it’s up to us to ‘put up or shut up.’ Now we have to perform. We know from other lotteries that it means aggressive- ly moving to build out an a liate program, selling online game cards at retail, and launching crossover games and promotions that tie together both digital and traditional. We’re eager to continue proving the case.” For lotteries considering going the iLottery route, or which are helping their state’s government explore the possibilities, the insights from the experts on this panel of iLottery veterans are most enlightening.