Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina recently served as a testing ground for a well-known second-chance lottery promotion from Scientific Games. Since 2011, the global lottery company has operated Warehouse Dash, a digital add-on to a retail scratch game featuring an event where second-chance winners race through a warehouse in Chicago to fill their shopping carts with as much free merchandise as possible in 90 seconds. But on June 22, the first-ever Dash event happened within a lottery’s home state—broadening Scientific Games’ promotional portfolio with another exciting winners’ event.
Scientific Games and the North Carolina Education Lottery collaborated creatively to host Ultimate Dash in-state. Anticipated excitement for a localized Dash led the NCEL to position its Ultimate Dash scratch-off game at the $10 price point.
“We thought this was a strong enough concept for us to be able to sell a $10 game, and it’s proven to be,” says Randy Spielman, Deputy Executive Director of Product Development and Digital Gaming at NCEL. “It was one of those unique opportunities. In addition to the local element of the race track, one of the big factors for us moving forward with this game and promotion at the $10 price point was that it included the chance to win a big cash prize with a wheel spin at the event.”
Ultimately, a grandfather of nine from a small town of 600 residents spun the prize wheel to win $170,000, saying he’d share his winnings with his family.
The Ultimate Dash
Since 2012, instant games with a Dash prize represent a total of $320 million in sales and 66 million online entries in the second-chance promotion. Scientific Games has presented 30 Dash events with hundreds of players from 19 state lotteries, including NCEL. So, there was familiarity with the concept when Scientific Games reached out to Spielman and his team to host the first Ultimate Dash locally.
“Our interest perked up when we learned we could do it in-state because we always try to localize promotions and offer unique opportunities. This checked both of those boxes well,” says Spielman. “But we didn’t want to do this in North Carolina only for logistics purposes. We wanted the promotion and the marketing to feel like it’s in North Carolina.”
What’s iconic to North Carolina and embodies a fevered 90-second race? The Charlotte Motor Speedway. Luckily, NCEL has a relationship with the speedway. A few calls were made, and the first-ever Ultimate Dash event would occur on a literal racetrack. Adding to the excitement, professional drivers drove players around the track as part of the winners’ experience.
The event allows states to appeal to local players’ interests. “It’s an opportunity for lotteries to host a big, fun event within their state, which is rare,” says Jeanna King, VP of Creative Engagement and Events at Scientific Games. “Most other lottery winners’ events can’t be localized. They’re geared towards a destination trip such as Las Vegas.”
“Giving the event a unique name and identity gave us something to offer lotteries more than just a promotion tied to a scratch game,” King says. “We can make Ultimate Dash uniquely local, which several lotteries prefer, especially since COVID. But to do that, we had to develop our own brand and tie it to a game.”
Beyond providing a local promotion to build engagement, the Ultimate Dash served another purpose for the NCEL: excellent content for social media and promotion.
NCEL Communications Manager Adam Owens worked with a production team using three video cameras and a drone to capture rich content at the Ultimate Dash event—from the red-carpet entrance to seeing 12 second-chance winners have the experience of a lifetime. NCEL plans to use the footage to build a microsite to promote the next Ultimate Dash event.
“What I’m starting to realize as a lottery with digital games becoming part of our portfolio is we are becoming more and more of a content company in addition to a product-based company,” Spielman says. “We’ve had this strategy for the last couple of years—to develop games and promotions that produce this three-dimensional winner content. But it’s even more important to us now in the last year than when we started down this path.”
What’s Next?
There will be one more Ultimate Dash in North Carolina once the scratch-off game sells out, likely in 2025. The first event took place just three months after the lottery introduced the game, so it could use the content to promote a second event to take place this fall.
Scientific Games is also partnered with the Vermont Lottery, Maine Lottery and New Hampshire Lottery for a Tri-State Ultimate Dash, which will take place September 28 in Portland, Maine. The Texas Lottery is also planning an Ultimate Dash in September.
Spielman’s main advice for other jurisdictions hosting Dash events in the future? Nail the venue: “You don’t want just to stick it in a random warehouse in your state,” he recommends. “Choose a venue that resonates with your players because it’s local. It worked for us on multiple levels.”