56 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 LOTTERIES GET CREATIVE TO ENGAGE TODAY’S PLAYERS SMARTPLAY’S NON-TRADITIONAL MACHINES ENGAGE & EXCITE The traditional act of players simply entering tickets into a web site to determine second chance winners might not be enough to attract tomorrow’s players. With so many gaming options, players want exciting, engaging game play combined with more value for their purchases. You might say they want the excitement of a casino or online gaming site brought to lottery. That was one thought of the South Carolina Education Lottery (SCEL) when they were making their 2021 game plans. With instant ticket sales enjoying strong sales, they were looking for a promotion that would both support a family of tickets and attract a range of players – current and new. After researching different ideas, the lottery reached out to lottery supplier Smartplay about The Big Spin® wheel. Fast forward to early 2021 and the SCEL launched its family of The Big Spin® games - $1, $2, $5 and $10 tickets. The centerpiece of this ticket launch was to use The Big Spin® wheel to support an attractive promotion. Players that revealed a SPIN symbol on their ticket scanned that ticket into the lottery’s Players’ Club where they then played a virtual The Big Spin® wheel to reveal their winning amount. The big draw was that a lucky group of players who won the opportunity to visit the lottery’s headquarters in Columbia, SC, for an exciting winners’ event. Players spun a six-foot high The Big Spin® machine. For each group of winners from each of the four ticket groups, the winning dollar amounts were swapped out. Players could possibly win from $1,000 to $1 million. “We are always looking for new ways to offer our players exciting and engaging opportunities to win money,” said Ammie Smith, Director of Product Development with SCEL. “With The Big Spin® games, we were able to provide the opportunity to see the act of winning money in a live setting. We brought together the traditional scratch ticket win, a robust promotion and a live studio event. We used YouTube Premier on our page to bring the actual wheel spin event live to our viewers. The level of excitement is unlike anything we have seen before.” Three years earlier, and more than 600 miles north of South Carolina, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) was also looking for something to spice up its instant ticket portfolio. They created The Big Spin® game category, which has now been used the world over. A couple of years later, they developed the Plinko® game to augment an additional game. Instead of being used for a promotion, wheel and puck drop games were actually grand prize mechanics for entirely new scratch card initiatives. In 2017, OLG launched The Big Spin® and Plinko® tickets, both $5 games. When a player revealed SPIN or PLINKO® when scratching their ticket, they took the ticket to retail. At retail the ticket was scanned, a virtual version of each machine was activated, and players won a minimum of two times the ticket price ($10) or the chance to participate in a live game. Players scheduled an appointment to visit the lottery’s claim center in Toronto where The Big Spin® wheel and Plinko® machines are permanently on display, waiting for top prize winners to try their luck at each game. The winning money was between $100,00-$500,000. Jim Acton, Lottery Industry Consultant SCEL's Amy Beattie presents a winner's check to Tyronne F.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTg4MTM=