Jim Lightbody, President & CEO at BCLC, opened the conference with a talk on the future of the industry. “The lottery retail experience, the one that we have today, is going to look a lot different come the year 2020,” he said. This is both exciting and daunting for the lotto world. The industry’s survival depends on its ability to evolve, and Jim’s presentation focused on how BCLC is moving forward. Since BCLC was first established in British Columbia, it has been a major factor in job creation, tourism, landmarks and legacy infrastructure for the province.
This, Lightbody said, is a double-edged sword. “The challenge however, is our success. The fact that we have been successful over the past 31 years means that we don’t have a burning platform. Therefore, we’ve got to light a fire under our own butt.”
Lightbody and BCLC are focused on creating this fire by recognizing that to stay around for another 30 years they cannot become lethargic. BCLC believes the innovation needed lies online.
More and more shopping is online. People spend between three to five hours of their day on their mobile devices. The mobile phone has now become a vital part of the consumer’s world. Quoting a statistic by Google, “More than 30% of all online shopping purchases now take place on the mobile phone,” Lightbody explained. “This shift in behavior has major implications for lottery. We recognize that as an organization we need to be mobile first. We also recognize that we need to create a seamless experience for our customers, within channels as well as between the various channels we have.”
