Now that true omnichannel lottery games have become a reality, the industry is learning that the same games available both online and in-store can reach a wider market and achieve greater consumer awareness.
This potential is just one of many interesting aspects of the Georgia Lottery Corporation’s (GLC) latest successful omnichannel launch: Quick Win, a complete reinvention of the Lottery’s Print & Play (Fast Play) games.
Quick Win launched in both retail and digital channels on September 18, 2023, contributing to the GLC’s goal of raising revenues for specific Georgia Lottery-funded educational programs such as the pre-K program and the HOPE Scholarships.
The launch comes four years after the Lottery offered IGT’s draw-based game, Cash Pop™ as an omnichannel game (2019). This proved to be such a hit that it cemented the GLC’s strategy to launch new retail games in the iLottery space as well.
Katherine Cundiff, Vice President of Product Development, credits the fresh success with Quick Win to this vision. The launch adds to the industry’s growing understanding of how different types of omnichannel programs are designed and how they perform.
A World’s First
All of Georgia’s Quick Win games (eight were released at launch) share the same progressive jackpot for all price points, whether the games are purchased at retail or online. IGT is the only vendor providing this solution of one shared pool across all Quick Win/Fast Play games, rather than a shared jackpot for each separate game, and GLC is the first lottery in the world to launch it. The jackpot starts at $50,000 and grows bigger with every Quick Win ticket sold. Every Quick Win prize is an instant prize—including the jackpot.
Play is easy and convenient, as there are no play slips to fill out or drawings to wait for. At retail, buyers choose which game they would like to play, and once played, they can scan it in-store on the scanner or Lottery vending machine. They can also ask the retailer to scan the ticket, or download the GLC app to check if their ticket is a winner.
Online, registered players may purchase Quick Win on the Georgia Lottery’s website at galottery.com or via the official Georgia Lottery mobile app while located within the state of Georgia. With online play, the results of the games appear right on the screen of the player’s computer or phone. Winners’ iHOPE® accounts get paid automatically when they win prizes up to and including $600 on games purchased online.
Identical Twins
Importantly, not only is the jackpot shared across Quick Win games, price points, and channels, the gameplay is also identical at retail and online.
While it might have been natural or even expected to embellish the digital version of the game to make it more like an eInstant, the GLC strategically chose not to. “The Lottery was very intentional about ensuring that the experience on the iLottery channel was the same as the experience at retail, and that the games featured a progressive jackpot,” notes Nat Worley, Vice President North American Sales Development at IGT, which provides the system framework for true omnichannel play and partnered with the Lottery to develop the Quick Win games.
IGT and the Lottery also collaborated on research related to the relaunch of the category, which validated that consumers in Georgia would respond well to the progressive jackpot feature.
Rollout & Results
Quick Win games racked up $463,414 in total sales on the first day alone, and the games’ popularity in the iLottery channel has been so strong that it has slightly outperformed retail sales from the launch.
It’s possible that the online channel may now serve to support greater awareness of the retail games. After all, visibility at retail is something of a challenge with the Fast Play category, since the games exist only in the terminal until they are bought and printed. It can be difficult to build awareness that the games exist, or that new titles have entered the category.
In Georgia, sales reps placed retail point-of-sale materials at the end of August, prior to the games’ launch in September. Advertising started the first week of October and ran for about a month, with another flight around the holidays. Currently, about 200 Walmart locations in the state also advertise the progressive jackpots on in-store jackpot signage. The limited visibility of the games at retail could be addressed with additional in-store jackpot signage if the lottery chooses.
Over in the digital channel, where initial promotions included banners on portals and emails directed to players, players responded enthusiastically. An advantage of the online channel is that sales results are immediately available and updated in real-time.
- The iLottery channel generated $278,000 of the first-day sales, with 7,200 players participating via iLottery, representing approximately 13% of total daily players.
- Almost two months after launch, the game was contributing nearly 10% of Georgia iLottery channel daily sales, with 16% of weekly Georgia iLottery players having purchased at least one Quick Win game.
- During February 2024, nearly 35,000 iLottery players in Georgia participated in over 800,000 Quick Win games.
- In the five months since launch, Quick Win games in Georgia have generated over $25 million in iLottery net sales with over six million plays.
As awareness spreads and popularity of the games continues to build, the Georgia Lottery is planning to expand on the successful launch with new Quick Win titles to come.
To check out Georgia’s Quick Win games, go to GALottery.com.
To learn more about IGT’s omnichannel game portfolio—awarded IGA Lottery Product of the Year 2024—please contact your IGT representative.