16 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • MARCH/APRIL 2024 Continued on page 38 Until recently, the players of different games seemed to stay in their own lanes: lottery players didn’t typically go to casinos and vice versa. But now casinos are so accessible everywhere, and sports betting has introduced a new category, so should we think of ourselves as competing head-to-head with other gambling options? S. Weyant: Lotteries generally have a broader player base than other forms of gambling. Most people have played the lottery at one time or another because it’s easy, fun, and offers a wide range of games. And when the jackpots get big, they bring in infrequent players who don’t normally play the lottery. The big jackpots drive the whole FOMO (fear of missing out) syndrome, resulting in a very broad player base and an almost universal awareness of lottery. That’s very powerful, and I don’t think that necessarily applies to other forms of gambling – except maybe betting on the Super Bowl. To address your real question, though, I think lotteries should look for opportunities to collaborate. Pennsylvania law requires casinos to be lottery retailers, and they have turned out to be some of our best retailers. For example, one casino buys Scratch-Off tickets to give to their loyalty club members as rewards. I think there is huge potential to build mutually beneficial bridges with other gaming categories, even in the online space. We used to say “multi-channel.” Now we say “omni-channel.” Is there a difference beyond just the number of channels? S. Weyant: I think there is a difference. When you start with the customer at the center, you break down the organizational silos that obstruct the genuine connection we want with our players. Maybe we should call it “omnipresent” as the goal is to shape our presence to align with how the customer thinks, behaves, and wants to engage with the lottery. Omni-channel does mean making products available where and when the customer wants to engage. But it is also a mission to think like our customers so that their perspectives drive everything we do. Can you give us some examples of how starting from the players’ perspective is creating a seamless experience for your customers in Pennsylvania? S. Weyant: Currently, although we sell Powerball® online, our Second-Chance Drawings are only for people who played at retail. But from the player’s perspective, it shouldn’t matter if you buy your Powerball ticket at retail or online, you should be able to enter that ticket into the same Second-Chance Drawing. We are working to enable all Powerball tickets, wherever they are purchased, to be entered into the same Second-Chance Drawing. Another innovation we expect to launch in Q4 is the Lottery Wallet, which will offer mobile cashing of retail tickets and be fully connected with iLottery, further improving player convenience. Are you also trying to create familiar images, protocols, or processes across different consumer-facing media like self-service terminals, point-of-sale displays, Mobile and desktop lottery interfaces to generate familiarity and make playing easier? S. Weyant: Yes, that’s partly why we do so many cross-product line game launches. We’ll take a licensed property or a theme and run it across different product lines to spread familiarity and recognition. When we launch a licensed property, players will see it at retail with bonus codes to try the online version. So, cross-promotions and the retail game-playing experience gives the player a reason to try the online experience? S. Weyant: Exactly. A goal of our marketing strategy is to take people from online to retail, retail to online, and back again because data shows that omnichannel players are more engaged, loyal, and valuable than players that just shop at retail or just online. Data also shows that, on average, retail sales accelerate faster in states that have iLottery than in states that don’t. That may seem counter-intuitive, but enabling players to engage with lottery wherever and whenever they want improves their experience and ends up benefiting everyone, including land-based retailers. Why do you think that is? S. Weyant: I think when you have a new online player, they’ve probably walked past the lottery signs and displays in retail stores for years without really noticing them. But after they’ve bought online, they’re more likely to notice the lottery displays whenever they’re in the store, making them more likely to buy a ticket there too. And we’ve used some simple strategies to help strengthen the connections between playing online and spending at retail, like having online coupons that can be redeemed in stores, and they have the highest redemption rates of all of our coupons. And the great thing about couponing is we know where those coupons are redeemed. So, we can provide our sales team and retailers with information to say, “Here are how many online players we drove into your store.” Pennsylvania is probably the US’s most competitive gambling markets, but despite that, you keep growing. What does that growth say about the potential for different forms of gaming to coexist? S. Weyant: We operate in a market saturated with gambling options. There are 21 online operators in Pennsylvania, that offer higher payouts than the Lottery, which affects our per capita performance numbers. Our market share of online gambling in Pennsylvania is only 1.4%, but we generate 8% of the net revenues that are turned over to the Commonwealth. So, we are overperforming in profit. And we do keep growing, in double-digits this year, despite the everincreasing competition. So, when people ask me whether iLottery can co-exist with online gaming, the answer is “absolutely.” Since inception, iLottery in Pennsylvania alone has generated $400 million in profit to support senior programs. Our goal is to create a seamless, friction-free player journey that respects the players’ point of view.
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