PGRI Digital Library: Thought Leadership
Brightstar Lottery Articles

Today’s diverse iLottery games offer some unique challenges to their creators and players. One major challenge is the fact that players can experience choice overload. With some lotteries offering more than 100 active eInstant games in their catalogue, players can feel overwhelmed.

Without guidance, they may struggle to discover eInstant games that match their preferences or playing style. Players who do not find relevant or exciting games may disengage quickly. This leads to lower session times and fewer repeat visits due to low engagement and retention. 

Without personalized recommendations, lotteries may fail to surface eInstant games that are trending or have high conversion potential, resulting in missed revenue opportunities. That is why Brightstar Lottery has introduced the Game Recommendation Engine. Like Netflix, Brightstar’s Game Recommendation Engine provides an enhanced, personalized consumer experience.

Solutions & Investment Where It Matters to Lotteries

As lotteries strategically reshape their operations to adapt to changes in consumer behavior, digitalization, and new forms of competition for players’ attention, taking action requires flexible solutions that meet current needs and support ongoing evolution. In its transformation to Brightstar Lottery from IGT Lottery, Brightstar has set the stage by purposefully evolving its lottery product roadmaps and aligning its resources with these objectives in mind. The result is forward-looking products and services that meet the challenges lotteries have cited as high priorities. Here are just some of the ways lotteries can take action to unlock more potential today, in accordance with their specific needs, and drive sustainable and meaningful revenue growth for lottery beneficiaries.

As lotteries strategically reshape their operations to adapt to changes in consumer behavior, digitalization, and new forms of competition for players’ attention, taking action requires flexible solutions that meet current needs and support ongoing evolution. In its transformation to Brightstar Lottery from IGT Lottery, Brightstar has set the stage by purposefully evolving its lottery product roadmaps and aligning its resources with these objectives in mind. The result is forward-looking products and services that meet the challenges lotteries have cited as high priorities. Here are just some of the ways lotteries can take action to unlock more potential today, in accordance with their specific needs, and drive sustainable and meaningful revenue growth for lottery beneficiaries.

Forward-Thinking Global Leadership: ​IGT Lottery transitions to BRIGHTSTAR

PGRI INTRODUCTION: Newly reborn in anticipation of the separation from IGT’s Gaming and Digital Business, the company now known as Brightstar Lottery has a legacy of innovation, leadership, and a steadfast commitment to the lottery industry.

From its origins as GTECH and Lottomatica to its position today as a pure play global lottery leader, the company is known for its depth of experience, expertise, and commitment to elevating the lottery sector.

With a presence in more than 100 jurisdictions across six continents, an impressive track record as a lottery operator in diverse regions around the world, and as the primary technology provider to seven of the world’s top 10 lotteries, Brightstar has positioned itself as a trusted partner in the evolving gaming landscape.

At the heart of Brightstar’s success lies a drive to evolve lotteries and revolutionize how the industry engages players. This focus has yielded groundbreaking games, connected digital experiences to evolve the retail channel, and innovative purchase and play solutions. These offerings not only prioritize player engagement but also deliver the data and insights to empower lotteries to expand their businesses in unprecedented ways. Brightstar’s impact is evident in its reputation as a go-to resource for lotteries seeking to adapt and thrive in a changing market.

In an exclusive interview, Renato Ascoli, Brightstar CEO Global Lottery, shares the company’s vision, leveraging its rich heritage and forward-thinking mindset to empower customers and lottery dreams around the world.

IGT Lottery – now known as BRIGHTSTAR − helped 26 lotteries cross the finish line for the launch of the recent Mega Millions™ game change.

Victoria Catt, Brightstar Vice President Solutions Delivery, reflects on her team’s coordinated approach. 

Delivery teams are central to the success of any system implementation. But handling one for multiple customers ahead of a multijurisdictional game change must be another order of complexity. How did your team approach it?

Victoria Catt: Given that we were coordinating efforts among 26 customer delivery teams, the analogy that comes to mind is “The Wave” − that incredible crowd phenomenon where stadiums or arenas erupt with fans standing and raising their arms in a ripple-like motion. It creates a visual effect that travels through the crowd, symbolizing unity and togetherness. We have our own version of The Wave. For us, it’s about working and communicating in unison and overcoming barriers to achieve a shared goal – in this case, a major national game change. Many lotteries and vendor partners were involved in different aspects of the Mega Millions™ launch, and as they can probably attest from their own experiences, this wasn’t just any project. For us, the project involved the contributions of hundreds of people based on the many facets of the project scope. It also required a high level of precision, communication, and expertise. One of the things I’m most proud of is how we demonstrated our approach to collaboration. From the beginning, it was about more than delivering software and meeting deadlines. It was about ensuring that every milestone was executed as promised on behalf of our customers.

Boost player engagement, instant ticket sales, and operational efficiency with the new Digital Menu Board solution from IGT.

This unique software solution is integrated with the lottery terminal application, making it easy for retailers to showcase their in-stock instant games and update their digital menu displays in real time.

IGT’s solution to drive lottery point-of-sale digital displays marks a huge step forward for retailers. What sets it apart? For one, it uniquely provides cuttingedge integration with IGT’s lottery terminal application — ensuring that a retailer’s digital menu display reflects a store’s current instant ticket inventory. For another, it’s not hardware. The Digital Menu Board solution from IGT is software that works with just about any digital signage monitor on the market.

Introducing IGT LotteryLink™, the award-winning solution that lets retailers quickly and easily sell lottery games in-lane on their own point-of-sale devices.

IGT LotteryLink™ clinched the title of Lottery Product of the Year at the prestigious 2025 International Gaming Awards in January, where it was recognized by judges for revolutionizing the way lottery tickets can be sold in stores.

LotteryLink solves an enormous need for the industry by enabling in-lane sales for both instant games and Quick Pick draw games without any point-of-sale programming. This innovative plug-in device offers unmatched ease of use and universal applicability for retailers and lotteries around the globe.

What ideas and solutions can lotteries use to  turn challenges  into opportunities in the year ahead?

In a panel session at the recent World Lottery Summit, IGT’s Renato Ascoli, CEO Global Lottery, offered a perspective on how industry challenges can drive evolution and growth: A given challenge or disruption “can also be an opportunity,” he noted, “depending on how we react to it.” ​Certain challenges require industry-wide collaboration to develop a unified approach. For many others, lotteries can embrace solutions that are available now, whether to accelerate modernization and enhance their connection with players or more readily adapt to a shifting competitive landscape. IGT takes the time to understand customers’ challenges and goals, and consistently seeks feedback to evolve the company’s products and services. This perspective, which informs IGT’s product roadmaps and significant R&D investments, is underpinned by consumer research, trend data, and IGT’s operator experience around the world. “We set the bar high for our development teams in recent years,” noted Ascoli prior to the summit.

A new IGT report outlines best practices and actionable strategies to harness the power of loyalty programs. ​

As lotteries compete for entertainment dollars and adapt to changing consumer behaviors, loyalty programs offer a powerful tool for boosting engagement and driving sustainable revenue growth.

T​o gain a deeper understanding of what drives player loyalty and share the findings with the industry, IGT’s Global Marketing Insights team partnered with Russell Research in 2024 to invest in a seven-country thought leadership study with over 7,000 consumers, among the largest study the two organizations have fielded together.

Surveying a general population of adult consumers, not morally opposed to playing lottery, a major piece of the study was dedicated to examining the benefits and perks of loyalty and membership programs that resonated most with lottery players.

IGT and Russell associate researchers also executed extensive desk research to identify the best-practice loyalty programs among non-lottery consumer brands, as well as perform a complete audit of existing lottery loyalty programs worldwide.

The insights revealed in the new report can help to inform lotteries’ strategies for player acquisition and retention, among other applications.