Public Gaming Magazine Sept/Oct 2021

60 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 ABACUS DIGITAL: BRINGING MOBILE PLAY INTO RETAIL H ave you ever thought how you would navigate modern day life without a mobile phone? Is it even possible anymore? It is difficult to remember a time when we did not have access to virtually everything through that small device in our pockets. The facts surrounding mobiles are both funny, scary and sometimes almost shameful. For example, did you know that over 90% of all mobile phone users keep their device within arm’s reach, 24 hours a day, and that in the UK alone over 100,000 mobiles disappear down a toilet each year? The mobile phone has created an elegant way of bringing together an enormous amount of information and services to help us with our daily routines. Typically, this in- cludes applications that put daily news and weather at our fingertips, information and support services tailored to our every need, electronic funds transfer and payment ser- vices, all of which make the mobile phone our closest friend. We can use it for virtually anything you can think of, from an alarm to wake us up in the morning to an app that sends us to sleep at night. Your imagination is the only limit. THE LOTTERY CHALLENGE For lotteries, the mobile phone opens up a raft of new and exciting opportunities, allowing lottery game play to be made more widely available and each consumer could be reached through targeted campaigns. With age control and financial services already integrated into the mobile platform, the phone feels like the ideal way to directly service our lottery customers (both passively and proactively) in game play and personal- ized customer journeys. However, the challenge for Lotteries and regulators alike is how interactive gameplay should be managed and controlled and where to define the boundaries between iGaming and a “brick-and-mortar” lottery world. The online gaming sector is develop- ing at a frightening pace, which makes it hard for regulated lotteries to manage these growth areas without proper controls. By Edwin van Zon and Mike Purcell www.lotteryeverywhere.com