16 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2024 TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION AND THE ENGAGEMENT OF THE MODERN PLAYER Dan Beebe Chief Operating Officer, BCLC (British Columbia Lottery Corporation) Paul Jason: BCLC is immersed in every game-of-chance category and distribution channel. How did the need to replace your lottery systems lead to transform your enterprise-wide technology architecture? Dan Beebe: Lottery was the genesis of this company and is foundational to our DNA. And we were proud of our lottery systems which for 20 years were incredible, very efficient and dependable. And because of this, we were able to focus our innovation efforts on casinos and new game categories, like online gambling and sports betting. However, in 2015, a governmental review of our lottery infrastructure determined that 90% of BCLC's legacy technology resided in our lottery systems and infrastructure. Our lottery systems were due for an upgrade. As we explored potential new IT strategies to enhance operations and the lottery player experience, we were inspired by the possibilities and decided that modernizing our lottery systems could be the cornerstone to something much bigger: the transformation of our business’s IT infrastructure. That’s almost ten years ago. Was it a long and winding road to get to where you are now? D. Beebe: Following the whole RFP process, we were all set to implement the new lottery system in 2017. INTRALOT was the technology partner on the hardware side but not the software side of the system. The vendor responsible for software had a different strategic vision, so we essentially started from scratch again in 2018 with INTRALOT as the hardware, software and application provider. We took the following four years as an opportunity to study the way technology was evolving and to think about the ways that IT infrastructure PGRI INTERVIEWS PGRI Introduction: BCLC (British Columbia Lottery Corporation) manages all commercial gambling and lottery products in British Columbia including lottery tickets, casinos and online gambling. Based in Kamloops, with a secondary office in Vancouver, BCLC consists of three lines of business: Lottery, Casino and eGaming. With more than 1,300 employees, its annual net profits exceed CDN $1.5 billion, all of which goes back to the province through investments like health care, education and community programs. Its service providers, who run casinos on its behalf under contract, employ an additional 8,300 people across the province. In May 2024, BCLC completed its most ambitious transformation to date: replacing and modernizing its legacy lottery equipment and systems, to both support the organization’s future success and increase benefit to the province, its retail partners, and importantly, its players. Dan Beebe, chief operating officer, shares his thoughts on this and other integral organizational transformations and their enduring impact.
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