In the new issue of PGRI magazine, Enrico Drago, Senior Vice President IGT PlayDigital, Sports & Italy Gaming, discusses IGT PlayDigital’s mission to support lotteries in offering a seamless, connected, easily navigable, and intuitive player experience. Pre-Covid, many lottery players continued to prefer playing exclusively at retail stores. “One impact of the pandemic is that players are seeking alternatives in this era of social distancing,” said Drago. “It is now vital for operators to provide a multi-channel portfolio of options for players to play wherever, whenever, and however they choose.”
Drago notes that the call for social distancing due to the pandemic has refocused current retail trends and consumer behaviors, greatly accelerating the industry’s need to apply contactless and cashless options such as those that IGT enables. “I think everyone appreciates that retail modernization has gone from being a pre-Covid ‘trend’ to being an urgent mission-critical crisis,” said Drago. “This represents an opportunity for lottery to digitize the retail journey to make the in-store lottery experience contact-free.”
To read the full interview with Enrico Drago in PGRI, click here.
IGT has a whole portfolio of digital solutions to transform the retail journey and the playing experience. In the new issue of La Fleur’s magazine, Srini Nedunuri, IGT Vice President PlayDigital Lottery, and Karri Paavilainen, IGT Senior Director PlayLottery Marketing, discuss the tools available and the approaches that lotteries can take today. It all starts with the decision to enter the digital space.
“It’s an important decision right now,” said Nedunuri. “Digital solutions are important not just from a sales perspective, but from the product and player-experience perspective as well. You can encourage your retail players to interact with you via your mobile app and various touchpoints that digitally enhance their overall lottery experience. Players can have their winnings withdrawn electronically and deposited directly into the bank. Or they can top-up funds electronically to buy their physical ticket by cashless and contactless means. These are just a few of the tools available.”
Paavilainen noted that there are three main approaches that lotteries take to move into the digital space. “One is to start by digitalizing the player relationship marketing and communications,” he explained. “A second is to digitalize the services, whether it’s a convenience app, ticket scanners, digital play slips, digital tickets, or redeem the winnings. And the third is digitalizing sales, where there are regulatory challenges for many states. But you can start with eInstants or draw games until you end up with the full product offering, which is what players expect.”
IGT supports the entire value chain for lottery, whether at retail, in the digitization of partial retail services, or a full interactive lottery solution with all the content and the services that are needed to help lotteries evolve into the next phase of their business.
To read the full article in La Fleur’s, click here.
For the latest blog updates, follow IGT Lottery:
