10 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • MARCH/APRIL 2025 Changing the Conversation: Connecting with the modern consumer and the next gen’ players Harold Mays Director, Illinois Lottery President, North American Association of State & Provincial Lotteries Paul Jason: Some state lotteries that introduced iLottery have seen exceptionally high growth rates. Is there an ideal target growth rate for iLottery? Harold Mays: I can’t speak for other states, but there are different ways to measure financial results. One is top-line sales revenue, which reflects total sales. Then there’s Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR), which is what’s left after prize money is paid out. In the iLottery space, some states measure their iLottery growth using topline sales. If you have e-instants, those numbers can be astronomical compared to traditional products. Others may only consider adding iLottery GGR to topline sales if they have e-instants. Everyone is different so everyone’s growth target can be different. What may be an ideal target for one may be different for another. So while iLottery GGR may show strong growth, it won’t be as high as the growth in top-line iLottery revenue. Since most of us tend to think in terms of sales revenue, what percentage of your total sales comes from iLottery? H.Mays: This year we are hovering around 19% of our total sales coming from iLottery, and we only sell draw games, no eInstants. We really lean into making sure people are aware that our games are available online and that it’s easy and convenient to play online. Wow. That’s higher than I thought it would be, considering it’s only drawgames. H.Mays: Let’s look at our history. Illinois was the first state to sell single tickets online back in 2012. In the beginning, we were only allowed to sell three drawgames online - Mega Millions, Powerball and Lotto. Our other draw-games could only be sold via a subscription online. That changed in 2019. Over the past twelve years, Illinois’ iLottery category has experienced double-digit growth in nearly every year since 2012. The growth in other iLottery states is driven more by eInstants, isn’t it? H.Mays: I don’t know if I would make that generalization because every state PGRI INTERVIEWS PGRI INTRODUCTION: After being appointed to serve as Acting Director of the Illinois Lottery in Jan 2019 by the current Governor, Harold Mays was officially confirmed as Director in March 2022 by the Illinois Senate. His experience with the Lottery runs deep—before stepping into the role of Acting Director, he spent five years as Chief of Operations and Technology for the Department of the Lottery. Over the years, he has witnessed significant changes and positive impacts on the state. One clear indicator of that growth: lottery sales have surged from $2.84 billion in FY 2020 to $3.86 billion in FY 2024. At the PGRI Smart-Tech Conference in Ft. Lauderdale in March, Harold delivered a keynote address on The Intersection of Sports Betting and Lottery in the U.S. Our conversation took that discussion further, exploring how lottery is increasingly intertwined with pop culture, recreation, entertainment, and other games-of-chance; and more specifically, how this evolving landscape is reshaping lottery’s role in players’ lives.
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