The Texas Lottery will launch a holiday version of IGT’s Super Ticket™ on November 7, 2016.
Priced at $10, it is Texas’ third Super Ticket. “This will be our first holiday themed Super Ticket to be introduced in Texas,” said Dale Bowersock, Instant Product Coordinator, Texas Lottery. “The previous two Super Ticket scratch games we introduced have performed very well with weekly sales surpassing other games in the same price point. We have no doubt that the holiday themed version will do very well also.”
He said the lottery “anticipates this game to surpass the sales of last year’s $10 holiday game, Happy Holidays, which had a 12-week index of 103.”
Holiday Countdown Super Ticket will be printed in color on both sides of the ticket. “The Texas Lottery has introduced Scratch-My-Back games from SGI and Play Book games from PBL, both of which print on both sides of the ticket. So this isn’t a new feature for us but it is the first Super Ticket printed in this fashion,” he said. “It is also the first time we have printed a game using IGT’s glitter ink. This new process should add glitz and flare to the already attractive design.”
Texas Lottery launches over 80 scratchers annually and typically has 60 to 70 instant tickets in market at any given time. “The holiday scratch tickets are a small, but important part of our portfolio,” explained Bowersock. “However, our players anticipate the introduction of the holiday scratch tickets not only for gift giving purposes but because they know they are out for only a limited time and that makes them attractive. Holiday scratch tickets of course also provide ‘news’ for advertising purposes and become the heroes of our marketing efforts during the season. With all that said, the holiday scratch tickets typically do index well and we look forward to introducing this year’s selections.”
Visibility is critical to maximize holiday scratcher sales. “Our oversize ticket games are in double width dispensers and are featured on top of special 5-bin merchandising towers or on the top of the regular merchandising displays at the point of purchase,” he said. “We print display-topper POS to further feature the games. The game will also be featured on ESMM slides, billboard, digital ads, as well as other in-store POS.”
Offering an oversized speciality ticket is important. “Our players in Texas have come to rely on us to bring unique, innovative scratch ticket designs to market along with our solid lineup of traditional scratch product offerings. We have merchandised products like the Super Ticket in special dispensers which have been placed at most of our retail locations now. These ‘specialty’ games have come to play an important role in our overall sales strategy and we work to have unique offerings in market nearly year round,” said Bowersock.