Lottery faces challenges similar to casinos

October 5, 2017 2:26 PM
  • Nick Sortal, CDC Gaming Reports
October 5, 2017 2:26 PM
  • Nick Sortal, CDC Gaming Reports

The player base is aging, and if young players are to replace them it will likely be via a different platform.

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Sound familiar?

Lottery experts compared notes Wednesday afternoon at a G2E session, titled “Learning from Lotto: How Gaming Can Benefit from a Shared Union.” Panelists that opined in the compare-and-contrast endeavor were Andrew Crowe, vice president of Lotteries Market Development, Vantiv Entertainment Solutions; Terry Presta, executive director of the Kansas Lottery; and Scott Bowen, former director of the Michigan Lottery.

Lotteries overall account for about $80 billion in sales, slightly more than the amount of gaming revenue accrued by commercial, Native American and racetrack casinos combined. But both populations are aging out.

Moderator Lloyd D. Levenson, chief executive officer of Cooper Levenson, Attorneys at Law, noted the average age of the lottery player was close to the average age of the slot customer, and both businesses are sliding.

“I go into a store and see people buying lottery tickets, but none of them are young,” he said.

Crowe said the big challenge is “letting people play what they want to play where they want to play it.”

“And it’s important to let them pay the way they want to pay,” he said. “The younger person simply doesn’t carry cash like the older generation does. So you might not gain them as a customer.”

Bowen said lotteries need to move to the Internet because the average online player is 38, while the average retail player is 50.

But he would like casinos to be more aggressive selling lottery tickets.

“Say you’re done playing the slots and you got $3 left, you don’t really want to cash out,” he said. “So instead of going to the cashier, you can go buy a Powerball ticket.”

Crowe said even if there is, perhaps, some inherent conflict, ultimately both the lottery and casinos face the same challenges.

“The only thing we know is the Internet is going to change everything, as it did in every other industry,” he said. “The question is how.”

But Bowen noted the challenge of the Internet and the lottery is that retailers who sell the tickets will not be happy.

“Our retailers worry we are going to forget them,” he said. “One of the beauties of the lottery network is you have thousands of retailers.”

Crowe said the lottery also needs to capitalize on its big moments.

“A $1.6 billion jackpot could drive a 21-year-old to buy a ticket, and like a casino, you don’t want that to be a one-time purchase,” he said. “So you have to present them with compelling content so they will come back more frequently.”