8 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2023 From the Publisher Talk about leveraging the value of our brands for maximum impact … Check out the photo collage on pages 18 and 19, along with the cover. Powerball® has long been one of the most valuable brands in the world, not far behind Sony and the NFL, and way ahead of anyone in the games-of-chance sector (like Caesars, MGM, or DraftKings). What a treat it is to see Powerball’s place in popular culture recognized by others, especially by the most popular shows on network TV like Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest. New Year's Rockin' Eve has consistently remained the highest-rated New Year's Eve broadcast on U.S. television for the past 50 years, with viewership exceeding 22 million in 2023 as it has for the last 10 years. Lottery players and those 22 million viewers celebrated the first Powerball® draw and newly minted millionaire of 2023 just minutes after watching the midnight ball drop high above Times Square in New York City. It was great fun for everyone. One interesting thing about the New Year’s Rockin’ Eve broadcast is that it reflects the profound value of Brand Powerball®. ABC and Ryan Seacrest are in effect trading valuable air-time for the benefit of affiliating with Powerball, its first-millionaire-of-the-New Year promotion and the millions of lottery players who tune in to watch. There is certainly a cost to this Powerball promotion, but the cost is a small fraction of the actual value of being an integral part of Ryan Seacrest’s New Year’s Eve show (and the power Ryan Seacrest’s brand itself ). ABC does that because they see the value of Brand Powerball and recognizes that Brand Powerball adds to the appeal of their show. Let’s talk about how the lottery industry, from multi-state games to individual jurisdictional brands, might develop other collaborations with media and consumer-products super-brands that yield similar kinds of synergies, with an ROI that factors in the intrinsic value of our own brands. Of course, the goal is to do more than just talk about what we’d like to see or do in the future. But we gotta start somewhere. At our last conference in NYC, we talked about some “elephant-in-the-room” topics like forging better alignment between government lottery operators and their technology partners. That discussion was continued at the World Lottery Summit Vancouver. We feature an executive summary of Rebecca Paul’s WLA Platinum Sponsor Panel Discussion that addresses other high-level topics as well. And we’ll continue the discussion at PGRI’s next event, Smart-Tech Miami at the end of March. Is it my imagination, or is public perception of games-of-chance and gambling quite different now from what it was even a few years ago? Sports betting and casino gambling now seem to me to be as socially acceptable as any recreational activity or consumer product. Sure, there is the age restriction, but there really is no more stigma than having a beer – in fact, casino gambling and sports betting would seem to be much more socially acceptable than smoking a cigarette or even drinking alcohol. And yet, oddly … we are seeing negative stories (and a recently-released book) about lottery, as if lottery is more of a problem gambling threat than casino gambling and sports betting. And we notice that sports betting gets approved with nobody even blinking while regulatory approval of iLottery has stalled in most U.S. states. How has it happened that casino gambling and sports betting came to be seen as more socially acceptable than lottery? I can’t say for sure but I’m wondering if those other game categories are directing their PR assets to focus on the goal of denigrating public perception of lottery. If this is the case, what can we do about it? Of course, we need to continue to get our message of support for society and good causes and Responsible Gaming into the pipeline of the general media, political constituents and influencers, and the public at large. Maybe we could get beneficiaries like Public Education to be more outspoken advocates for Lottery? Harness the power of our many thousands of retailers? I do not have an answer, but I think we need to do more. We need to forge a pathway towards more effective political action. In the mean-time, we need to continue to optimize our strategies in the marketplace. That is where Team Lottery has excelled and continues to learn from experience, gain confidence in our ability to compete, and apply talent and hard work to drive innovation and progress. After all, we must be doing something right as lottery does still command by far the largest player-base and generate far more economic benefit for society than any other game-of-chance category. Next up is the EL/WLA Marketing Seminar and ICE Gaming Show in London February 7-10 (see page 33) and then PGRI Smart-Tech Miami March 28-30 (see page 51, inside back cover). See you there! A special thanks to all our editorial contributors and advertisers! I appreciate our partnership, the leadership you provide this industry, and the brain-trust you share with our readership. And a special thanks to Jim Acton, who so effectively captures the essence of the issues in his edits of the Executive Summaries in this issue and the articles he writes for PGRI Magazine. Paul Jason, Publisher Public Gaming International Magazine
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