Public Gaming International November/December 2021

46 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021 committed without the surety of being accomplished. I need to know if I should press for further detail on how it will be accomplished, or perhaps just make sure I don’t over-commit resources on my end based on an expectation that may not be fulfilled or may not be achieved on time. Working on both sides of the business has given me a respect for the challenges everyone faces. I think it has also given me some insight to know when to drill down on an explanation that I think may be fungible, maybe there is wiggle room on the delivery date or the service fix, or maybe I need to press for another option or workaround, or maybe I need to call on someone higher-up, or maybe I just need to back off because I know the obstacle is intractable or insurmountable. Demanding the impossible is not as constructive as trying to discern what is best possible course of action and press hard for that. More important than speed to market is to do it right. We don’t want the Beta version, either in product or execution. And more important than holding everyone’s feet to the fire is to create a spirit of collaboration, to ensure that everyone’s interests are aligned so we are all pulling in the same direction to produce a quality product on a timely basis. It must be rewarding to be in a position where you can harness the whole variety of work experience and apply that knowledge for the benefit of good causes and the mission of government lottery. J. Hewitt: I do think my experience on the vendor side makes me a better customer. I like to think I can be part of the solution, part of the brain-trust that powers through all the underlying issues, sorts out the salient factors to arrive at a pathway forward. You know, we never really see the whole picture. We constantly have to make decisions in spite of incomplete information. But IGT is a great partner and together we are confident that the opportunities are optimized, the downsides minimized, and we are always moving in the right direction. Are you working on in-lane sales solutions? J. Hewitt: We are a new lottery and we are a small lottery. It is not our charter to “move quickly and break things”. Certainly no sports-betting, no iLottery for at least a few years. In-lane sales and progressive initiatives like that are on the radar. We do want to get there, but we continue to work on consolidating the basic traditional lottery business functions and infrastructure. My stakeholders insist that we build a solid foundation, that we optimize all aspects of the business we are in, that we master all aspects of product development and portfolio management, of retailer recruitment and support services, of distributional logistics, of all methodologies for delivering success in the marketplace … before we add more to our plate. I would say that my stakeholders may want us to accelerate the rate of new products, new POS initiatives like in-lane, cashless payment options, new channels of distribution, etc., if or when Alabama authorizes lottery or sports-betting. We are presently pursuing the plan that the enabling legislation intended, and stand ready to expand products and methods of operation at the direction of policy- makers. I think of it as applying life-cycle logic to business process. The Mississippi Lottery is not even two years old yet, but we started our second chance instant games last August. And we launched the lottery with Ticket Vending Machines. Other lotteries took a much longer time to launch second-chance games and TVM’s. My point is that all lotteries evolve in ways that are most appropriate for their own marketplace, their own gaming culture, their own public policy objectives and priorities. New lotteries with less mature marketplaces should not necessarily be in a rush to implement all the initiatives of more developed gaming cultures with more sophisticated consumer expectations. How can we prepare for the post- pandemic era? J. Hewitt: We can try to anticipate how things might end up, but I am not attempting to predict with too much specificity. How will changes in work- styles affect commuting and traffic in convenience stores, how much of the consumer products market shifted to online merchants during the pandemic and how much of that will migrate back after the pandemic, how might the impulse for social distancing cause us to prefer lottery over casinos, how might sports-betting affect the broader games-of- chance industry and lottery in particular – we can and should be thinking about these things and many other trends. But we just do not know how these things will unfold and so should not over-commit to strategies based on this incomplete picture of the future. Too, we don’t know what new factors will enter into this mix, and how these new factors will further complicate the challenge of predicting the future. The bright side of this picture is the knowledge that lottery is positioned better than anyone else in the broader games-of-chance industry, with the most powerful brand recognition, enduring popularity of the games, and a massive network of retailers. Nobody else has that portfolio of assets and it is next to impossible to replicate. So, we evolve to keep up with the trends, we keep making the best gaming products in the world, and we execute. n I think we also need to face the reality that dangerous viruses will be our new normal for awhile and we need to find ways to balance our need for safety with the need to go about business and life in general.