Cost efficiency has always been a theme for the worlds state lotteries; how best to maximize revenue for good causes in a responsible way.
Frank Cecchini, Senior Development Manager for EveryMatrix, (with almost two decades of experience working within the lottery technology supplier sector) believes that many state lotteries could improve their returns to good causes by looking at how commercial gambling operations are managed within an environment of much greater competition, leading to higher prize payouts and consequently lower operating margins.
Technological progress has been incredibly slow in the lottery world. Systems and best practices simply have not kept up with what is now accepted as baseline technology requirements for the commercial gambling industry.
“There is a historical dependance on land-based central systems,” explained Cecchini. “usually operating in triplex, with a primary and secondary in a data centre at the lottery and a tertiary system 12 km away. That’s three systems. Modern, cloud-based platforms offer equivalent security at much lower cost.”
These three systems are sized to handle the maximum anticipated peak in transactions over the five or 10-year life of the contract. The vast majority of the time the average lottery central system operates well below capacity.
“The analogy is the offshore oil industry’s 10,000-year wave rule,” noted Cecchini. “Oil rigs are so high because they are built to be higher than the highest wave in 10,000 years. We build lottery systems like that, as well, to handle the enormous $1.2 billion jackpots that occur two or three times in five years that will have half the planet trying to buy a lottery ticket.”
By contrast, commercial gambling operators use cloud-based systems that are able to draw upon additional capacity as and when needed. “Lottery systems can grind to a halt when a process requiring lots of system capacity is executed at an inappropriate time,” mused Cecchini. “With a modern, cloud-based system, a spike in demand would be almost instantaneously supported by a spike in capacity—the system as a whole remains available to efficiently deal with even the highest levels of ‘lottomania’, although it might run your bill up that month.”
Commercial operators work in highly competitive markets. They have to find profit in operational efficiency. They must cut costs in order to return revenue (in their case) to shareholders.
Lotteries return high margins because they cooperate with one another and are protected from direct competition by their monopolies. This is changing.
“The markets in the Netherlands and Germany, are opening to competition,” noted Cecchini. “While the core product continues to be protected under a monopoly, lotteries will have to compete for the available gaming euro with operators who are more agile, have a lower cost base and are better at attracting and retaining players—especially the younger ones.”
Lotteries can learn from private operators and have the best of both worlds. They can benefit good causes by implementing more modern, lower cost but higher performance platforms.
Unlimited Creativity
EvertMatrix offers a full suite of platforms that utilize modern APIs and microservice-based technologies to work together as a turnkey system or independently integrating into existing systems to deliver industry-leading performance. Powerful AI technology is harnessed to deliver a truly personalized experienced to players as insights into behavior and preferences generally.
The goal at EveryMatrix is to be the number one B2B provider and manager of digital omnichannel platforms for the entire gaming industry. To claim that crown, the company will continue to expand in the lottery market. Specializing in web-based, mobile, and retail, the company offers the entire gambit of modules designed to get the wager into the system.
EveryMatrix has already landed two of the highest profile lotteries in Europe. “With OPAP in Greece, we provide our iGaming Integration Platform —CasinoEngine,” noted Cecchini. “CasinoEngine aggregates game content from a library of nearly 175 content providers delivering over 11,500 different games.”
Norsk Tipping leverages CasinoEngine to power KongKasino, Bingoria, and FLAX, where players can enjoy an unrivalled casino experience from an industry-leading selection of casino style and instant games content. CasinoEngine’s sophisticated back-office is providing Norsk Tipping’s team easy command and overview of their entire casino content offering, operations and performance including those provided by third parties like IGT, NetEnt, Quickspin, Novomatic, Magnet Gaming and Scientific Games.
Furthermore, EveryMatrix continues to provide active service to Norsk Tipping and is the single point of tech support contact across all content provided.
In a nutshell, EveryMatrix makes the integration of third party content or service providers a quick, easy and low cost proposition, in total harmony with the lotteries objectives of maximizing returns to good causes in a responsible way with exciting yet cost effective content and services.