24 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2023 With the benefit of a crystal ball or some other futuretelling device, our decisionmaking processes would be flawless. No missteps or bad calls. Clear visibility into the future would combine with perfect execution to produce over-the-top results. Alas, no such device exists which means that decisions are made with a combination of analyses of past results, future needs and objectives, and data and empirical evidence. And maybe a few “gut check” moments. For the lottery industry and its implementation of iLottery, looking back – all the way to 2010 when the Minnesota Lottery was the first U.S. lottery to sell games online – there are steps that were taken and not taken which land the industry where it is today. What insights have we gleaned from the iLottery experiences? What could have been done differently over the past dozen-plus years to produce even better results? Where will we be in the next few years? These and other pressing questions were addressed by a group from different corners of the lottery industry at the PGRI Lottery Expo recently held in New York City. Moderated by John Martin, Director, Maryland Lottery and Gaming, the panel included: David Barden, President and CEO, New Mexico Lottery Amy Bergette, Vice President, Digital Content Studio, Scientific Games Brad Cummings, Founder & CEO, EQL Games Mike Lightman, Chief Commercial Officer, Instant Win Gaming (IWG) Julin Shaw, Sr. Director, Brand Marketing & Business Development, NeoPollard Frank Suarez, Executive Director, DC Lottery Bishop Woosley, Senior Advisor, Jackpocket John Martin was quick to note that the Maryland Lottery is not an iLottery jurisdiction. But as an industry veteran who manages a lottery that oversees casinos and other game categories and channels of distribution, John knows the ins and outs of iLottery and has served as an advocate for lotteries looking to do more online. Each panelist brought a different history and perspective to the discussion. Mike Lightman is a veteran of the vendor side, having worked at both IGT (GTech at the time), Scientific Games and now iLottery game provider IWG. “At GTech, we were working on games in the mid-1990s that today would be called eInstants but they were digital versions of scratch tickets played on free-standing kiosks,” he said. “At Scientific Games, we launched the first iLottery program in Minnesota and it ran for a short period of time before being shut down. Now at IWG, I work with a team that creates digital content for iLottery providers across the world. So it’s been more than two decades of working on digital content.” EQL Games came to iLottery a number of years after its start but Brad Cummings believes his company has found one of its niches. “We started as a sports content company and then the pandemic happened and shut down all sports,” he said. “That was certainly one risk factor I never saw coming as a sports company. As we regrouped, I saw iLottery as an opportunity to bring content to the industry quickly and efficiently. We’ve partnered with a company called Present Creative and we just signed our first contract with the Michigan Lottery. This pivot has benefited us and allowed us to offer iLottery content while we continue to work on building exciting new game concepts.” Amy Bergette said it was European lotteries that first brought Scientific Games into the iLottery business. “Fourteen of the 16 German lotteries have been digitizing their instant products with a mix of physical and digital games, and they started in the 90s” she said. “We’ve had the benefit of working in the iLottery space for many years through that European experience, and then Mike and I worked together on Minnesota’s brief iLottery stint. We have learned a lot over the past 10-plus years of U.S. activity and there’s much room for all of us to continue to grow and progress.” As a long-time lottery veteran and now director of the New Mexico Lottery, David Barden is in the same category as John as he is unable to sell products online. However, there is one big difference. “New Mexico allows for courier sales, so I let companies iLottery: If We Knew Then What We Know Now P A N E L D I S C U S S I O N E X E CU T I V E SUMMARY O F A ONE - HOUR PANE L D I SCUS S I ON PGR I L OT T E RY E XPO CON F E R ENC E I N NEW YORK C I T Y “You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards.” — Steve Jobs Continued on page 36 John Martin
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