PGRI Digital Library: Thought Leadership
Brightstar Lottery Articles

'Making Next-Level eInstants a Roaring Success'

From the pig that provides the model for the ubiquitous piggy bank, to the dramatic elephant in an exotic jungle setting, animal characters and motifs are always popular favorites. Lotteries have recently experienced roaring success with the games Lucky Coins and Elephant King Jackpots, two creative new eInstants from IGT featuring animals, which offer opportunities for increasing player engagement, responsibly. The first 30 days of sales for IGT’s Lucky Coins and Elephant King Jackpots surpassed the first 30 days of sales for any other eInstant title launched this year, and by a significant margin — roughly 106%.

Animal Tamers

It takes a talented village to create successful animal-themed games like these, including a producer; production artist; game artist; animator; game designer; prize structure mathematician; prototype engineer; client engineer; Game Logic Engine (GLE) engineer; audio designer; and QA engineer — all collaborating to develop the best experience for players. The game producer has an eye on the project from start to completion. As part of the development process, designated team members develop a theme, mechanic, and roadmap, and pitch it to the IGT content and studio directors. With approval from creative leadership, the team works on the concept, flow, artwork, development and play testing of the game, and quality assurance.

Expansion of IGT’s flagship After School Advantage program continued this year, giving more students access to technology and encouraging interest in the fields of science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM).

To help young people develop the knowledge and skills they’ll need for the jobs of tomorrow, IGT is committed to providing technology resources and promoting STEAM education. For more than 25 years, the company’s After School Advantage (ASA) program has advanced such educational opportunities through digital learning centers in communities where IGT operates. Each ASA digital learning center is completely unique, catering to the specific needs of the organization receiving the donation and the community it supports. Over the years, the program has provided significant learning resources to open up career paths and future opportunities for thousands of individuals.

Do players’ perceptions of lottery differ by sales channel? A new IGT global study seeks to understand how and why

Lotteries around the world are at varying stages in their ability to access and optimize all the available sales channels to sustainably grow returns for good causes.

Yet, as lottery modernization continues, and despite regulatory obstacles to iLottery in some jurisdictions, it’s likely that most markets will eventually serve – and need to understand – multi-channel players. From mature multi-channel markets to nascent ones, the industry as a whole can benefit from insights on this developing player segment. What are the characteristics of multi-channel players? Why do some favor one channel versus another? What strategies could lotteries potentially pursue to encourage more cross-channel play?

To serve this need, IGT set out to capture and convey a more detailed understanding of multi-channel players. The company’s Global Marketing Insights team partnered with Russell Research in 2024 to invest in a global thought leadership study, the largest study the two organizations have fielded together to date.

Researchers surveyed a general population of adult consumers, not morally opposed to playing lottery, in seven countries: Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Italy, Spain, and the U.S. Among other topics, the quantitative phase of the research explored general lottery playership behaviors, especially as they relate to the differences between retail-only and digital-only lottery purchasers and digital/multi-channel lottery purchasers. Special Report Preview: A new IGT Special Report, based on the research, aims to offer a data-driven understanding of player interactions across the various lottery sales channels, to support lotteries in navigating their ​unique challenges.

What makes self-service a win for players, and how can effective execution make a difference?

In fulfilling their mission to generate funds for beneficiaries, lotteries know there is always an opportunity to take a fresh look at strategies to increase player satisfaction and drive sustainable growth.

Self-service optimization is immediately actionable for most lotteries and holds enormous potential upside for lotteries, retailers, and players. As discussed in Part 1 of this article (PGRI May/June), data analysis by IGT shows that retail locations with an LVM to complement the sales-counter offering consistently outperform those without an LVM. Based on RMI data for sites that report vending sales, the average weekly lottery sales for retailers with lottery vending is $11,866, versus $7,405 for those without — amounting to more than 60% greater sales.

Georgia, Kentucky, and Rhode Island Lotteries Catch Love Fever ​

IGT debuted a fun new eInstant, Love Fever, in February 2024, full of love, surprises, and an array of prizes to warm players’ hearts year-round. Love Fever boasts a tumbler mechanic with an expanding board, sweet graphics, animations, wilds, instant wins, and multipliers. In the eInstant game, players collect clusters of matching love-filled symbols to win prizes. Players may find that the expander symbol expands the grid, making way for even bigger clusters and bigger prizes. Players who reveal three bonus symbols can trigger the “LoveStruck Bonus,” with even more chances to get hearts racing and win rewards. IGT’s Love Fever game successfully anticipated player preferences. “We hadn’t previously offered a love-and-romancethemed game,” said IGT Game Studio Game Producer Georgina Sallis. “The female demographic is a major player group, and I felt this was a game that this audience would enjoy.”

Cute Creative Sallis had fun deciding what the engaging game symbols would be, like the lock and key, halo heart, and devil heart. “To determine a really clear visual hierarchy of value, where all the symbols are very lovely,” she recommended that the highest-value symbol should be the most luxurious and feature the most gold, and the lesser-value-ones could be cute items like the strawberry. Passionate about Promotions IGT’s Player Marketing team was excited to help the Georgia, Kentucky, and Rhode Island Lotteries launch, market, and create awareness for IGT’s new Love Fever eInstant game to new and returning players. Fun promotions showcasing many engaging facets of iLottery leveraged seasonality, playing an important part of these successful Lotteries’ marketing calendars.

With more data — and a new, advanced analytics technology platform to analyze lottery vending machine metrics — come new insights to maximize performance.

The National Retail Federation’s predictions for 2024 foresee ongoing changes to the instore environment, whether retailers will be investing in technologies to provide shoppers with more personalization, or revamping stores to align with the experiences consumers want.

Yet even as the retail landscape shifts, when it comes to lottery sales, one of the reliable constants is still self-service vending. 

“Self-service remains important to lottery retailers, relevant to players, and holds significant untapped opportunity for lotteries,” says IGT’s Paul Riley, VP Retail Innovation and Partnerships.

”Retailers’ hierarchy of needs starts with data, data, data – it's the lifeblood of retail. Lottery vending machines (LVMs) are just one of the areas where we can offer lotteries access to more performance data than ever, and dimensionalize it with new analytics capabilities,” he explains. “We’re working collaboratively with lotteries and their retailer partners to apply the data and insights to scope the opportunities and help determine how to deploy optimally.” Optimizing LVMs can improve player convenience, help lotteries connect with new players, and ensure that the lottery products consumers find most appealing are available to them, all of which drive sustainable growth.

PGRI Interviews Jay Gendron, IGT Chief Operating Officer Global Lottery

PGRI INTRODUCTION: Since December 2017, Jay Gendron has been the Chief Operating Officer of Global Lottery at International Game Technology (IGT), ensuring that IGT’s resources, products, and services support the diverse and unique needs of Lottery customers around the world, excluding Italy. His role includes leadership of lottery operations and customer relationships, instant ticket printing, and global field operations.

In October 2015, Jay was inducted into the Lottery Industry Hall of Fame at the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries (NASPL) Annual Conference in Dallas, Texas.

Since joining IGT in March 1995, Jay has held various positions in Government Relations, Lottery, and Video Lottery sales. Prior to stepping into the position of COO, he served as Senior Vice President, North America Lottery, from 2014 until 2017. These positions of increasing responsibility over his 29-year career provide Jay an incomparable understanding of lottery operations to better serve the company’s worldwide customer base.

Jay is a member of IGT’s Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Council, and the co-executive sponsor of ACE, one of seven Employee Impact Groups at IGT. ACE stands for Advancing Cultural Education, whose primary purpose is advancing people of African descent through recruitment, professional development, and networking within the company and the gaming industry.

Jay recently shared his thoughts on lottery opportunities for the year ahead and other current topics:

Paul Jason: Your role expanded six years ago from managing sales and operations in North America to managing them worldwide. What have you observed about the industry during this time?

Jay Gendron: Europe is far more advanced in the interactive space and cloud computing. The lotteries face similar challenges to those in the U.S. with illegal lotteries, plus they are facing an increase in commercial operators especially in the digital space, as well as challenges due to restrictions on consumer advertising and the continued challenge of “How do we continue to grow responsibly in an everchanging gaming environment?”

Since Covid and the significant growth in the digital space, the priority for lotteries is to know their customers and provide appropriate content that competes with the aggressive commercial operators and retains the core of responsible gaming.

International customers also realize that retail remains important, and they need to strike the delicate balance of building their digital sales while maintaining their strong retail sales, which they are accomplishing with innovative omnichannel offerings.

What opportunities do you see in the field today?

Jay Gendron: From a global and holistic viewpoint, I see the opportunity to accelerate growth and technology innovation via advances like the cloud. Other highly regulated private and public entities — as well as government services — have migrated to the cloud to enhance security, improve scalability when demand requires it, and ensure that they always have the latest and greatest software updates available. Lotteries also need to be prepared and positioned to do the same.

5 Future Forward Trends Driving Lottery Growth A 2024 SPECIAL REPORT​

It’s hard to believe that a little more than a year ago most of the world had never heard of an AI tool called “Chat GPT” — let alone been inundated with commentary and predictions about the much wider realm of generative artificial intelligence. Yet, in less than a week, this one tool went from zero to 1 million users and dominated tech headlines throughout 2023.

That explosion of attention, seemingly out of nowhere, is just another example of how head-spinningly fast changes in the technology landscape can be, impacting consumers and, often by extension, the lottery business.

Looking ahead to spot such seismic changes on the horizon is one of the reasons why IGT continues to invest in consumer trend research, partnering with globally recognized firms such as UK-based Foresight Factory to regularly publish Special Reports such as 2024’s “5 Future Forward Trends Driving Lottery Growth.”

Observed Michelle Carney, IGT Vice President Global Lottery Marketing, “Not only do many of the learnings help to shape IGT’s product plans, sharing them externally is in line with our longstanding commitment to support responsible growth for customers and the industry. Hopefully these efforts provide some ideas for lotteries’ consideration or serve as a heads-up on shifts that many of us have no way of detecting from our everyday lines of sight.” 

A Chat with IGT’s Karri Paavilainen

Lotteries are more receptive than ever to new ways of engaging with lottery products. IGT applies its lens as an operator and supplier to provide customers with a full spectrum of solutions, accelerating retail and digital innovation.

Karri Paavilainen, IGT Vice President iLottery Products and Services, is a familiar face at industry events as a subject matter expert, speaker, and participant in roundtable discussions, recognized for his expertise in lottery digital transformation and outstanding customer relationship management. He is described as an excellent thinker, respected by customers and colleagues, with the ability to generate consensus and a dedication to leading by example. Known for his precision and meticulous organizational skills, Karri has established a strong record of collaborating with lotteries to develop the digital channel, resulting in double-digit growth across IGT’s iLottery customers.

Here, Karri shares news about his latest role at IGT, and describes how lottery continues to evolve to meet today’s customer needs. 

For those who might not yet know you, can you please share a little about your background and how you came to be at IGT?
Currently as a Vice President at IGT, I am responsible for products, platforms, and services for our core iLottery offering. My prior responsibility was focused on leading Player Marketing Services, delivering B-to-C marketing as a service to our customers. I have now been with IGT for a decade. Prior to joining IGT, I worked with Veikkaus, the Finnish national lottery and sports betting operator, for eight years. What are you rolling up your sleeves to tackle this year? I will continue collaborating closely with IGT’s customers to understand how we could better create solutions to fulfill evolving operator and player needs, including my now expanded scope of accountability for platforms and products alongside services.