24 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • JULY/AUGUST 2022 Competition within the Games-of-Chance Industry continued from page 10 throughout his storied career. “While it’s critical that we address this issue, we should stay mindful of one important factor in our favor: our retail network,” he said. “It’s such an incredible asset and strength that we enjoy over all potential competitors. While there are 1,000 plus casinos in North America, there are more than 200,000 lottery retailers. Given this powerful size advantage, we have seen cases where casinos are coming to the lottery and looking for ways to partner together on initiatives that expand their distributional reach. They know we are sitting on this powerful asset. A partnership is also an effective way for us to also expand distribution and get lottery products in front of potential new players and introduce them to our games. New players who came to Lottery by way of casinos can perhaps be driven to our retailers, creating a winning situation for both sides. Casinos are not going away so why not see how we can partner with them?” As Iowa Lottery Director for more than three years, Matt Strawn has seen mobile sports betting added to casino gaming, and this competition is squarely on his radar screen. “In Iowa, we don’t have the same tools as other lotteries,” he said. “We don’t have iLottery, we don’t have keno, we don’t have Rapid Draw - we have a very traditional lottery portfolio. With a dramatic proliferation in our market of sports betting, we have many challenges facing us, not to mention the impact of inflation. But what we can do is use our retailer network to make sure our products are as available as possible, use in-lane solutions to bring lottery to where players are paying for their purchases. We’re working with companies like Abacus on different initiatives to increase our visibility, starting with Mega Millions and Powerball. As I say to my team, we need to control what we can control and if the Iowa policymakers decide we should add other products to our portfolio, we will be ready to go toe-to-toe with the other gaming options.” Canada is a few years ahead of the United States in offering the full range of gaming options nationwide, with each individual province overseeing the entire portfolio of gaming options. In both her roles with Loto Quebec and the World Lottery Association, Lynn Roiter has seen the impact of growing competition on lotteries as well as how lotteries have responded. The question for Lynn is how that competition is impacting lotteries and their players. “We know that polling shows that anywhere from 70-80% of the adult population in Canada and the United States have bought at least one ticket in the past year,” she said. “So we know that a large share of our adult population accepts the lottery. This might mean that the lottery is creating players for our competitors and not vice versa. My experience is that it is a small niche of players who only play at casinos but those are the people we can attract to lottery and grow our player base. Most likely, it will be the industry’s instant tickets that attract these players because of the fast action involved. At the same time, let’s focus on our infrequent lottery players and how we can get them more involved. When the pandemic forced all forms of gaming except lottery to close, we saw an incredible increase in sales of instant tickets. People either discovered or re-discovered instant tickets. It was a reminder that we do have products that are interesting to people and allow us to compete with other forms of gambling.” Derek Levesque said that the increase in gaming options has had a two-fold impact – younger players are entering the market and more player data is now available. IGT is working on initiatives that help lotteries maximize both. “The increase in younger adult players in the overall gaming industry is directly tied to the accessibility of the products, particularly sports betting,” he said. “When you look back at sports betting, the last time PGRI had a conference (Nashville in October), 50% of wagers were placed in retail and 50% were on digital. Last month 88% of sports betting wagers in the United States were online. So the accessibility of the product to the younger demographics and the proliferation of payment methods is impacting that market, including the lottery industry. It’s both a challenge and an opportunity for us to examine what we’re doing and take a look at the value propositions for players in both channels. Turning to the casino industry for comparisons, I don’t think a lottery will be sending their VIP players private jets any time soon. But I do think there’s an opportunity for us to take a much closer look at the loyalty programs and other tools and strategies being applied in other gaming sectors to attract and retain players. We could learn from their experience and modify and adapt those best practices to our lottery sector. “One opportunity we have that’s not necessarily the same in the iGaming or sports betting market is that we have very specific data points for our players, and we know how we can reach those players in marketing with bonusing and promotions and things like that,” he added. “Where the iGaming market often uses blanket strategies that they utilize globally, we can take a much more customized approach to really speak to those specific players that we’re looking to acquire and retain. As soon as those players opt-in to loyalty, iLottery programs, or any of the programs that offer us digitally acquired data points and insights, we need to leverage that data to ensure we’re doing the right things to retain them for the long term.” ALL EYES ON SPORTS Much of the recent attention in the gambling world has been on sports betting, as more states add in-person and mobile betting opportunities. This creates a few important questions: Where does the increased sports betting money come from? Does sports betting threaten to peel off some of the discretionary spend that is now allocated to lottery? Lynn said there are no simple answers.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTg4MTM=