“We wanted to think about the end-to-end customer experience, from when you even start to think about playing the Lottery, all the way through to when you win, whether it’s USD 5 or USD 5 million,” explained Amber Seale, the Lottery’s Chief of Brand Management. “We want you to have fun doing it, and we want you to know how to do it in the best way for you, all the way through the process.”

A new online Player’s Guide is a fun way to provide information so consumers can make thoughtful decisions about playing, and winning, the Lottery responsibly.

The customer is king. The long-held axiom of business is still as important as ever, and in January the Florida Lottery took a big step towards providing its customers with an experience that ensures that they play – and win – responsibly.

Encouraging responsible play has long been a basic tenet of lottery operations everywhere, but few lotteries combine the “play” with the “win” under the same banner. Florida’s new online Player’s Guide does just that, designed to help lottery players every step along the way. After all, it’s also important to be responsible with winnings of any amount, but especially if those winnings are astronomical – like those often produced by America’s big jackpot games Powerball and Mega Millions.

“We wanted to think about the end-to-end customer experience, from when you even start to think about playing the Lottery, all the way through to when you win, whether it’s USD 5 or USD 5 million,” explained Amber Seale, the Lottery’s Chief of Brand Management. “We want you to have fun doing it, and we want you to know how to do it in the best way for you, all the way through the process.”

After all, playing the Lottery should be fun! The interactive Player’s Guide serves as an engaging one-stop-shop for the latest tips, resources, documents and how-to information for every Florida Lottery player – from beginners to experienced players.

The Guide, available in English, Spanish, and ADA-accessible versions, was created as a micro-site, promoted on flalottery.com and through the Lottery’s social media channels. Launched on January 6, it has received good media coverage throughout Florida.

Assembling the Content

Seale credits the entire leadership of the Florida Lottery with making responsible play a high priority and enabling this important project to come from her Brand Management team. “At the Florida Lottery, playing responsibly has been core to our business, so the idea is nothing new for us.”

Still, there was a desire to do more, to provide players with tools on how to make thoughtful decisions not only about how they play, but also what to do if they win. Lotteries always talk about their games and how much fun they can be, but “we want to be good stewards of our players and elevate the idea of responsible play.”

The team drew on all the work being done by the World Lottery Association (WLA), the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries (NASPL), and the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) – all of which have generated a better understanding of consumer habits and behaviors, and created numerous responsible gaming initiatives across the lottery industry.

They pulled from the Lottery’s own work in the responsible gaming arena, including certification by the WLA and verification in the program offered by NASPL in partnership with the NCPG. Ideas were also borrowed from other lotteries. “Many of our peer lotteries have resources similar to this,” explained Seale. “It’s been very helpful to see and learn from each other all the things that work.”

Also closely examined was the British Columbia Lottery Corp.’s GameSense responsible gaming program and the way it creates content. GameSense is very successful in taking complex topics and presenting them in a very simple way, Seale noted. “They do a really excellent job with that, and that is something we wanted to mirror in the Player’s Guide, while keeping to the Florida Lottery brand.” That was important to Florida, to keep its hard-earned brand front and center. “We take a lot of pride in everything living within our brand and our tone. Our execution looks and feels like the Florida Lottery.”

The desire to create that bite-sized, relatable content in the Player’s Guide was also communicated to PPK, the Lottery’s advertising agency. “They helped us design the site to make it something that feels interactive and engaging, for people to follow through,” said Seale.

That engagement comes in each of the Guide’s two sections, one about playing and one about winning.

Responsible Playing

The Play Responsibly section includes a variety of playing tips, information and resources, presented in an interactive way complete with videos, including:

• Information about budgeting, discretionary income and other financial tools from the Florida Department of Financial Services.
• Tips for players on how to play responsibly, such as never borrow money to play the Lottery; always play with money you can afford to lose; don’t think of Lottery as a way to make money; set a dollar limit and never chase losses; and don’t play when you are depressed or upset.
• Understanding game odds.
• Quizzes on playing responsibly and debunking common myths about lotteries.
• Resources for problem gambling, such as Florida and national gambling helplines – help is always available.
  
  

Responsible Winning

To meet Florida’s desire to provide the best end-to-end player experience, it was important to provide similarly easy-to-understand information about what happens with a prize win of any amount. Included in the Win Responsibly section of the Guide are things such as:

• Tips if you have a winning ticket, such as signing the ticket, keeping it in a safe and secure place, claiming before the prize expires, and validating it at any Florida Lottery retailer.
• Information on the entire claims process, such as where to claim a prize based on the prize values, how to claim by mail, what documents/information, if any, will be needed to claim, and when tickets expire.
• Tips on protecting winnings from scam artists.
• Resources on how to manage winnings, such as tax information and links to advice on finding financial planners, attorneys and accountants.
  
  

The Next Steps

Seale and her team are tracking how people are accessing the Guide and how they are using it, and that information will drive potential content changes and how it will ultimately live on the Lottery’s website. How people perform on the quizzes will also be monitored, to see if answers to quiz questions signal the need to create new content or provide additional links to further educate players. “We’re very open to optimization, and the sky’s the limit. Digital is a very nimble space in which to update and add content.”

The entire Florida Lottery team is excited about the Player’s Guide and the way it brings together two critical aspects of the player journey, and they have more plans to elevate the winner experience in the coming months. “This could be very stale, cumbersome and complicated content, and I think we’ve spent the time and put in the work to really be thoughtful about how to present it to show we care about our players,” said Seale. “We are really excited about this.”

You can visit the Florida Lottery’s Player’s Guide at https://playersguide.flalottery.com/