29 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • MARCH/APRIL 2022 This graph of scratch card sales in EU and US 2002 – 2020 is impressive. You can see the very strong growth in sales of scratch cards, both in the US and Europe. But this is not an exclusively North American phenomenon. In France the percentage of their total sales from scratch cards was 62% for the first half of 2021. In Italy, Gratta e Vinci instant games launched in 2004 and the product category grew to more than $10 billion in annual retail sales by 2018, a more than 23% compound annual growth rate …mainly driven by introducing higher and higher price points. Guesses please, on how long it will take to see the launch of a mainstream $100 scratch card… DRAW BASED GAMES Our second big trend concerned Draw Based Games (DBG). We saw many changes in domestic Lotto Games - increasing price, adding extra draw nights, and adding extra features such as Megaplier, raffles or add-on draws … but the big change in our 20 years was growth in Multi-jurisdictional games. While the original Powerball and MegaMillions have been around since 1992 and 1996 …we saw a major acceleration of North American Multi-jurisdictional Games development with the introduction of cross-selling in 2009. Before 2009, each U.S. lottery sold either Powerball or Megamillions, but not both. Now all U.S. lotteries sell both Powerball and Megamillions. While in Europe we saw the introduction of Multi-jurisdictional Games with Euromillions launched in 2004, followed by Eurojackpot in 2012. Both of these games had a significant impact on the sales figures in all participating jurisdictions. But they also posed a serious Marketing problem… or “positioning problem” … for the domestic DBG market in each of the participating countries. These games were also responsible for the most noteworthy (or headline grabbing) DBG development in the 20 years, with the $1.6 Billion Mega Millions Jackpot in October 2018. This came from the North American model –similar to the Australian Oz Lotto – where the Jackpot is not capped. As we know, the European policy is to cap Euromillions or Eurojackpot Jackpots at a certain level to moderate the growth of the Jackpot. I have always argued for the European approach … but then who is to say what is right? Just a passing reflection on the top or call-out prizes: In 2002 there was a clear separation of DBG’s from Scratch Cards. This is best represented by the slogans which went “A Lotto win will change your life – a scratch card win will change your day”. By 2022, with scratch card top prizes as high as $10million, or £4Million in the UK, this simple rule is beginning to look like a sad anachronism… and the drive for bigger and bigger call-out’s on scratch games top prizes is destined to continue. While this may be a trend, it is one of which I would not be a fan. Sports Betting In May 2018, the US Supreme Court overturned a 1992 law that prohibited states from legalizing sports gambling. This opened up the possibility for states to authorize their lotteries to enter the sports gaming market. Many States in the US are
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