La Fleur’s Magazine’s web series—Quote of the Week—features interviews with lottery directors about what’s ahead for their organizations in fiscal 2023. We will feature a different director each week. This week we are spotlighting Ralph Addis, CEO, Lotterywest.
What’s ahead for your lottery in FY23?
“We’ve just come off a record-breaking year at Lotterywest with growth of 25% over the last two years to total sales over AUD$1.2 billion and returning AUD$323 million to the Western Australian community through our community grants program. Lotterywest is very proud of its long-standing grant-making history. As the only Government-owned and operated lottery in Australia, all money raised from our games after prizes is distributed directly back to the community, and that’s a source of unique strength and support amongst our playing community that we’re looking to build on.
Our focus for the next financial year is ‘responsible growth’; continuing to increase sales by increasing our reach and encouraging more people to play our games, as opposed to increasing sales per head. Player safety is, and will continue to be, a key priority.
Along with the team at Lotterywest, my focus is to ensure our organisation is well positioned for the challenges ahead, including changing trends in retail, customer needs, and the impacts of new technology, and that means a big focus on the strength of our retail network and working hard to support the retailers of our games to be at their best and adapting to the changing world.
And of course, continuing to evolve our games to meet our players’ needs will remain a big focus, building on changes we made this year to our OZ Lotto game to reflect our players’ interest in larger jackpots. So, there’s definitely enough going on to keep me busy!”
What book are you currently reading?
“I’m actually re-reading Bill Bryson’s Short History of Nearly Everything which is a guided tour of science, from the unfathomable size of our universe to the mind-bending smallness and weirdness of particle physics. Bryson writes in a light-hearted way that helps make sense to the non-scientist; it’s a great reminder of how much progress we’ve made in understanding our amazing world, but also how much more there is out there.”
Where do you plan to vacation in the next six months?
“As I write this, I’m about to head out to start a bushwalk with a group of friends through the backcountry in the amazing Kimberley region in the far north of Western Australia. It’s an incredibly rugged and remote landscape, rich in Aboriginal history and heritage. I’ll be walking through pristine country for several days and will most likely not see another soul (which is good for mine!). Better be off now . . .”