30 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 The Multi-State Lottery Association is currently rolling out the biggest advancement to its software infrastructure in the past five years. It’s called FLEX – a modern game management system, developed in-house, that will streamline how lotteries and vendors report sales and winner data during the draw process of some of the country’s largest games, including Powerball®, Mega Millions®, Lotto America®, and Lucky for Life®. This year, FLEX will begin phasing out its predecessor, the MUSL Automated Reporting System (MARS), for use in lottery drawings. In addition to housing the new Draw Dashboard, FLEX will also contain an extensive archive of draw reports and game data, an online directory of lottery professionals, and a document portal. “The long-term goal is to house all MUSL applications under the FLEX umbrella,” said Dallas Beek, MUSL Principal Software Engineer. “Users will no longer have to jump from site to site to navigate MUSL applications, everything will be accessible from one central location.” Beek, the architect of FLEX, began working on the system’s framework two years ago after reviewing MARS and other MUSL applications. While MARS achieved its goal of implementing automation and additional checks and balances into the draw process, in the evolving world of tech, it was starting to show its age. In comparison, FLEX offers users a simplified, intuitive interface designed to make draw nights run smoothly. Some of the new features include audible tones for messages and alerts; a progress bar to track each step of a drawing; and relocating all games to the same screen, so draw staff who are monitoring multiple drawings don’t have to click between tabs. But undoubtedly, the primary benefit of FLEX has been the ability for lotteries to check for balanced sales daily. To ensure the integrity of the game, Powerball rules require balanced sales from all lotteries (matching CGS and ICS data), or play data in a secured state, before a Powerball drawing can begin. In MARS, lotteries could only check for balanced sales at draw break, which was one to two hours before a scheduled drawing. “For draw staff, having an out-ofbalance issue so close to draw time can be very stressful,” said Sue Dooley, MUSL Director of Draws and Productions. “In the new FLEX system, if there is an out-of-balance, lotteries have additional time to detect it and resolve it, which means potentially fewer lockdowns, lockdown alternatives, and draw delays.” MUSLNEWS MULTI -STATE LOTTERY ASSOCIATION MEET FLEX – THE GAME MANAGEMENT SYSTEM MODERNIZING MUSL OPERATIONS Sue and Dallas reviewing the FLEX system in the MUSL draw-room
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