39 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • MARCH/APRIL 2024 And iLottery platform providers, in your case Scientific Games, are typically trying to make it cost-effective, fast, and easy to implement third-party content? S. Weyant: That’s the goal with Scientific Games, they’re calling it the content hub. It’s an aggregator tool, like a library, and it’s my understanding that it will be easier and more efficient for third parties to integrate and deliver content to us. With iLottery in general, the accepted practice is to have access to a lot of third-party games. There are all these international studios that we’re soon going to have access to through Scientific Games’ content hub, sort of like “Netflix of iLottery” as Pat McHugh (CEO of Scientific Games) called it in your recent interview with him. Are there any ways in which your experience in the online world has changed or informed what you do in the offline world? S. Weyant: We’ve done Second-Chance Drawings for decades, but previously we only had limited data. However, now we can take that data and integrate it into the iLottery CRM, which gives us this view of retail players that we never had before. And those insights drive decisions about how best to spend your advertising budgets? S. Weyant: Yes. In traditional in advertising, we have standard metrics such as reach, frequency, and awareness, but we never really knew that this advertising had driven this player to buy this game. With online sales and digital advertising, you can see a true return on ad investment. It seems like iLottery just takes you in a whole new direction in terms of your relationship with your players, your retailers, your plans, strategies, and marketing, and just about everything? S. Weyant: Absolutely. iLottery is a game changer! n Leading with Gratitude — continued from page 33 Iowa also has lots of casinos. Should the lottery industry see itself in head-to-head competition with these other forms of gaming? M. Strawn: I don’t know from a philosophical standpoint if other game categories should be viewed as head-to-head competitors. Rather, it is important to take a holistic view of what is happening across your entire entertainment marketplace, of which other forms of gaming are just one component. However, we do need to position the lottery as part of the broader marketplace conversation when it comes to discretionary entertainment options because if we don’t, our mandate to responsibly maximize a sustainable source of revenue for causes like the Iowa Veteran’s Trust Fund becomes significantly compromised. My team and I have a fiduciary responsibility to the State of Iowa to ensure the lottery remains in that conversation. And, we’ve made some very strategic and intentional decisions to do that by enhancing the value proposition of our game portfolio and offering experiential prizes that really only Iowa Lottery can provide. So it seems you might say that your response to the industry’s challenges generally is characterized by gratitude and enthusiasm instead of assuming an unresourceful negative attitude? M. Strawn: Paul, that is an excellent way to frame up our entire discussion. When you enlist the action-focused power of enthusiasm, with the often unexpected, yet powerful impact of gratitude, everything is possible. Who doesn’t love that? n Houston, have you seen the latest issue of Public Gaming Magazine?
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