14 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2023 As a four-decade veteran of the international lottery industry, Mark Michalko understands the importance of teamwork. He has worked on both the vendor side (IGT and Intralot) and the lottery side, serving as the first director of the California Lottery and now director of the North Carolina Lottery. So he knows what it takes for a plan to come together, which is what he has seen with the current success of the instant ticket product. “I know for the North Carolina Lottery, as with most lotteries, reviewing the data is critical to making decisions on your portfolio,” he said. “Recently, we went back through our entire history of scratch tickets in North Carolina and looked at all the attributes of every product we’ve ever offered to determine a formula that tells us which type of game performs best when released at a certain time, with different game features, and in conjunction with other products. Our goal is to have a balanced portfolio of instant ticket products that are positioned for the best chance of success. It was a lot of work but instant tickets are so important to lottery, this type of analysis is critical.” Across the country, lotteries and ticket vendors are constantly looking at their instant ticket programs to determine the best formula for success. Mark’s panel took a deep dive into the strategies that lotteries are employing to strengthen their product offerings, provide customers with tickets they’ll purchase, and ensure that the incredible revenue stream created from these products continues. Joining Mark were instant ticket experts from the public and private sectors: Mark Michalko, Executive Director, North Carolina Lottery Matt Isaac, Senior Director Lottery Marketing, Pollard Banknote Jeremy Kyzer, Vice President Sales, Scientific Games Ryan Mindell, Deputy Executive Director, Texas Lottery Tom Seaver, Director, Colorado Lottery With almost no advertising budget, the Texas Lottery has relied on compelling scratch products to drive sales, particularly at the $50 and $100 price points. Ryan Mindell said careful planning has been one key to their success. “Planning more than a year out allows us to put different pieces in place and then make changes as necessary,” he said. “But ultimately, you want your portfolio to reflect player needs. We have players who now only buy $50 and $100 tickets, and that is driving much of our revenue growth. But many more people are buying $5s, $10s and $20s. There might be people only buying crossword games. So we need to have a diverse set of options and price points. The more varied your portfolio, the greater variety of play-styles you can appeal to and the greater the number of people you can attract to your products.” At Pollard, Matt Issac and his team uses data to study how different price points impact different player segments. “We need to position products so they have the greatest chance of success, not cannibalizing each other, reaching the right player groups,” he said. “Over the years, we’ve all looked at what the higher-performing per-cap lotteries have done and tried to emulate their best practices. Understanding the life cycle of games is also critical. You want to make sure you release a new game at the right time so it doesn’t step on a ticket that is still doing well. All these decisions are best made with detailed market data and player segmentation.” A veteran of both the vendor and lottery sides of the business,” Tom Seaver focuses on creating and executing market strategies that give his team the best chance of success. “A well-rounded marketing strategy will look at the strengths of each of your tools and apply them to the messages that are most important to communicate to players,” he said. “For example, I have seen great work in Scratch category advertising, and equally great work for Scratch product specific support. Is one approach better P A N E L D I S C U S S I O N Following is an executive summary of a one-hour panel discussion held at the PGRI Lottery Expo Conference in Miami Focus on Instants at Retail: Applying the most progressive strategies for driving Instants Sales at Land-Based Stores Continued on page 18
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