North American lottery marketers were surveyed on what they predicted would be the big scratcher idea to push their instant sales in fiscal 2019. The roundup follows below:
“We are launching our first-ever $50 price point in October 2018. This game, called Classic Celebration, combines seven traditional $10 format games into one package, delivering $70 in play value. It has both high payout and strong odds of winning. Insights gleaned from recent player research were used in the design of Classic Celebration and the product is also great for gifting. We’re expecting it to deliver on several purchase opportunities and will be a major driver behind our projected sales growth this year.”—Merrill Fullerton, Senior Brand Manager, Instants, Atlantic Lottery Corp.
“The growth in our National ticket portfolio (offering high price points of $10, $20 and $30) has been consistent year over year (+21% vs. last year). We’re diversifying that portfolio and starting to add tickets that offer lower-value prizing, with great success in BC. I believe that the strength of our National portfolio will be a significant contributor in fiscal 2019.”—Heather Tryon, Category Manager, Instant, B.C. Lottery Corp.
“We are looking forward to launching a Monopoly family in the spring of 2019. We will offer a $2, $5, $10 and $20 price point and will have a dedicated marketing campaign. In addition, the tickets will be printed on special foil paper to make them standout at retail. Based on recently conducted player research, which confirmed the strength of the brand, we are anticipating great sales for this series.”—Liz Furtado, Chief, Scratcher Products, California Lottery
“We have a number of exciting products lined up for FY19, but we believe our higher price point [$30] ticket will have the most significant impact on sales. We are excited to introduce this product and campaign to our market and look forward to seeing how our players respond.”—Stephen Cooke, Instant Product Manager, DC Lottery
“This year we’ll reintroduce our most popular Scratch-Off product, GOLD RUSH, as a family with some interesting twists. Each of the games are designed and branded with the ‘Classic’ look of our original player favorite—$20 Gold Rush. In addition to the classic look, games will also feature unique prize structures designed to emulate the experience of the classic game we’re always asked for. The entire suite will kick off with the introduction of a $20 in December, featuring a holiday pulse to position it with the season. We’ll follow with our family of $1, $2, $5 and $10 games in January and introduce a $30 special edition $30 game in February.”—Justin Rock, Director, Product & Research, Florida Lottery
“For FY19, we have several big ideas to help us generate a year-over-year sales increase. We’re launching a family of games in July that will boast some of the higher top prizes in each price point category. In September, we’re going to launch a unique $30 offering which will include the best odds to win a $1,000 out of our current portfolio of games. We are also focusing on our core products to explore unique brand extensions.”— Meghan Dondero, VP of Product Development, Georgia Lottery Corp.
“We’ve had great success in diversifying our Scratch-off portfolio by balancing games with traditional prize structures alongside newer, non-traditional prize structure concepts. In the last 18 months we have introduced games with no high top prizes, games where all prizes are cashable at retail, as well as games with no break-even prize structures. In FY19, we will continue to balance our portfolio with these games including $10 ‘loaded’ which includes prizes up to $500 and no breakeven prizes.”—Melissa Pursley, VP Marketing & Product Development, Hoosier Lottery
“For the next fiscal year, we are looking at launching new games for our existing higher price points that will help refresh those price points including: $30 game–$300,000 Platinum Cash; $20 game–Aces High; and, $20–Big 7s (7.8”x 8” ticket)—which means three out of our five long running multiple year $20 and $30 games will launch new versions during FY19.”— Deirdre Demmerly, Instant Ticket Games Manager, Iowa Lottery
“We have aggressive plans for instant sales in 2019 with two major initiatives to help us achieve those goals. The first is the introduction of 425 Gemini Touch Screen vending machines. The machines will hold 28 instant games (current machines hold 24 games). Additionally, we will be able to redeploy the existing 400 plus machines to retailers who didn’t have them giving us 24 more games in each location. Finally, and to recognize Kentucky’s 30 anniversary, we will introduce our first $30 Scratch ticket in February with the highest top prize in Kentucky history and a distinct Kentucky themed name.”—Tom Delacenserie, President & CEO, Kentucky Lottery Corp.
“We’ve pushed our Christmas collection a step further this year. Every ticket of the line will have a little something special; it’s all about experience and emotion. As per the rest of the year, we will continue to build and improve on last year’s strategy.”—Anne-Marie Voyer, Department Manager, Product Management & Development, Loto-Québec
“If you’re a true Marylander, you can’t help but fall for our Old Bay Bucks scratch-off. With a June 25 summer launch, this $2 scratch-and-sniff ticket shows colorful imagery of the well-loved Maryland seasoning with that familiar Old Bay scent. Given that the ticket will likely appeal to both core and non-players, we expect it to help us through the ‘summer slump.’ Maryland 7s (a $5 ticket) will launch in the fall on September 24. The iconic 7s theme, known industrywide, will feature a Maryland twist with seven state-specific scenes, including the Maryland flag, Black-eyed Susans (our state flower) and Maryland Lottery logos.”—John Gorman, (Former) Managing Director, Chief Marketing Officer, Maryland Lottery & Gaming Authority
“We are planning to introduce a $20 Cashword game in September. This will be our first new price point in the extended play category since the 2011 launch of a $10 Cashword game. We are also considering our first-ever oversized ticket as part of our holiday release in October. Both concepts have tested well in focus group research.”—Lauren Luttrell, Instant Product Manager, Massachusetts Lottery
“In FY19 we will launch a new $25, following the same rule of thumb as the last one. Additionally, we will launch two scratch your back $5 tickets, which are always a crowd pleaser (knock on wood!). Additionally, we will launch a new $20 multi-scene ticket. The last two $20 games were launched in calendar year 2016, so we expect to see a big lift at this price point!
The NH Lottery will really focus on fine tuning the lower price points to hopefully see a lift. Between slightly extending some print runs, changing the focus in some of the prize structures, and tweaking some of the game launches, we are looking forward to what FY19 brings!”—Kelley-Jaye Cleland, Director, Sales & Product Development, New Hampshire Lottery
“For 2018-19 we think it will be pure Mayhem! We launched a family of four games in May all of which are off to a strong start. We produced the Mayhem series after reviewing the returns the games were generating in other jurisdictions. Of course, we tweaked the games to create the look and propositions New York players expect. Bottom line, the $1 ticket $50 Mayhem is indexing at 115, the $2 $100 Mayhem is at 111. The $5 $1,000,000 Mayhem is also at 115 and the $10 $3,000,000 Mayhem is at an amazing 157. After just 9 weeks, this family of games has far exceeded expectations.”—Gweneth Dean, Director, Lottery Division, New York State Gaming Commission
“I think the big opportunity for us in 2018 is to continue to find new ways to leverage the oversized and unique value proposition games, and to focus on optimizing our portfolio of instant games. We will really be focusing on what combination of instant game types at any given time results in the best performance and base all of our planning on maintaining that mix of games in the market.”—Randy Spielman, Director, Product Development, North Carolina Education Lottery
“In August we will be releasing our first $10 Pop ‘n Pak® game, Super Break the Bank. We are also waiting for approval to release a $50 game in January. Both of these games will be instrumental in helping us to achieve our FY19 sales goal.”—Ronald Fornaro, Instant Ticket Product Manager, Ohio Lottery
“The positive changes we continue to make with our legislation has really opened the door for us to create a more engaging customer experience and we are taking full advantage of that in this and the coming years. The Oklahoma Lottery has changed and we are working hard to convey that message through better payouts, more winners, consumer messaging and engaging retail clerks. We will continue to improve current products, add new products and deliver this message to consumers. It’s a very exciting time in the history of the Oklahoma Lottery.”— Brandie Reisman, Marketing Manager, Oklahoma Lottery
“We’re still excited about our ‘Big Ticket’ products that we introduced late last year and display in a unique Infinity Merchandiser at retailers. We plan to offer a new game with new play styles every quarter at the $20 price point to keep the category fresh and exciting for consumers. Additionally, we’re excited to launch The Bigger Spin at the $10 price point in October 2018. It features the same fun game mechanics with a larger top prize of $1,000,000!”—Carleen Cameron, Director, Marketing & Production Management, INSTANT Tickets, OLG
“In our new fiscal year, we will expand prize restructuring in the $5 price points and lower, working to enhance the value proposition ‘sweet spot.’ We’re also planning to use specialty inks and new production formats this year. ”—Kara Sparks, Director of Products, Pennsylvania Lottery
“For fiscal 2019, we will expand the Loteria brand to include a new $20 price point and we will launch two families of games that utilize special printing features and incorporate exciting second chance promotions to drive sales for the Texas scratch portfolio. In addition, we’ll continue to look for prize structure optimization opportunities including games with limited prize tiers ($100 or $200) to provide a variety of game options for our players.”—Robert Tirloni, Products and Drawings Manager, Texas Lottery
“We think our Win a Spin scratch ticket will be a highlight of fiscal year 2019. This $5 ticket will be a spotlight game with a special size of 4” x 8” designed to stand out from other $5 tickets in market. There are three ways to win: traditional scratch reveal and online, plus eight lucky winners will visit our Virginia Lottery Headquarters to spin a giant prize wheel and are guaranteed to win between $100,000–$500,000. We think this ticket has the potential to appeal to new players, capitalize on game show popularity and create some buzz via advertising and social media.” —Terri Rose, Director, Advertising & Gaming, Virginia Lottery
“WCLC will be launching a new type of instant ticket in fiscal 2019. The $5 BIG SPIN ticket is scheduled to launch in February 2019 and will include three game components: a $5 instant ticket, a watch ‘n win retail prize and a Big Spin wheel event. Players that uncover a ‘SPIN WIN’ will have the opportunity to watch their prize reveal ($10 to $10,000 or BIG SPIN) on screen at retail when they validate their ticket. If the prize revealed at retail is ‘BIG SPIN’ that player wins $10,000 and is entered into the BIG SPIN event where they are entitled to spin the prize wheel to win a prize ranging from $100,000 to $500,000!”—Don Coleman, Manager, Big Play Products, Western Canada Lottery Corp.