Alice Garland, Executive Director of North Carolina Education Lottery (NCEL), presented “North Carolina’s Success in Different Venues.”
Expanding sales venues helps raise more money for education in North Carolina. Garland pointed to online play sales, Play at the Pump sales, cashless sales and newly launched Carolina Keno sales.
Convenience of online play attracts new and casual players. Four draw games are sold online; there are no digital instants sold. Subscription service was launched in December 2013.
The lottery’s new website features an integrated log-in and a cart. It advertises that single or multi-draw tickets available. “Since allowing single draw purchases, we have seen a steady increase for single draw purchases. Each spike since that decision shows a large jackpot with one of the games,” said Garland.
Play at the Pump offers a convenient and fast way for players to purchase draw games. It is a ticketless transaction. The debit card is the proof of the purchase.
“There are many reasons why people love to play at this point. It is the cheapest advertising anyone could have. While pumping your gas, you’re seeing the three jackpot amounts for the biggest games,” said Garland.
Finally, cashless brings the convenience of online play to the retail environment.
“Cashless is the hot topic. People don’t carry cash in their wallets anymore,” asserted Garland. “We don’t allow credit purchase. We do allow debit—51% of our retailers allows debit purchases. We are going live with debit cards and mobile pay in our shiny new vending machines. We’ll also use Apple Pay and Google Wallet.”
