lottery
Allwyn Finds Winning Formula with New Digitally-led National Lottery Retailer Training as Users Top 7000
Allwyn has announced that over 7000 of its independent retail partners are now using its new Retail Training Centre – an innovative, digitally-led retailer training platform – with more stores signing up every day. In just one day alone in February, almost 1000 National Lottery retailers signed up to start using the all-new online platform.
Developed by world-leading learning solutions provider, Sponge, Allwyn launched the Retail Training Centre at the beginning of February to support independent store owners and their staff to be responsible National Lottery retailers with “always on” digital training that’s available to them whenever suits them best– making it easier to regularly train staff in store. As well as documents containing key information about how to sell National Lottery games responsibly, the platform features engaging training modules on “Preventing Underage Play” and “Minimising Excessive Play”. It will also be updated centrally by Allwyn with new and improved training over the coming months and years.
As well as being available on mobile or desktop, the Retail Training Centre has been specially developed so that its user profiles don’t require the use of personal data to log in. As a result, training is more accessible to all staff– including casual and temporary employees – as there’s no need to “sign up”. The platform instead works by only having one user profile and login per store, with sub-folders containing all the necessary training that can be assigned to each member of staff. This approach also allows Allwyn to see whether a store has completed the necessary training to ensure they’re compliant with important areas such as “Underage Play”, with Allwyn Retail Sales Executives able to offer additional support during store visits if needed.
Additionally, Allwyn’s digital-first approach to training its retail partners has seen the company embed the use of the platform in its retailer onboarding process, making it mandatory for any new National Lottery retailer to activate their Retail Training Centre account and complete the digital training before their National Lottery equipment is installed. This ensures new retailers understand the obligations of being a responsible retailer before they even begin selling National Lottery products.
The digital nature of the platform also means new training can be issued by Allwyn network-wide, or to individual stores, depending on requirements. This means Allwyn can effectively train its entire retail estate on specific areas in one go – making training quicker, easier, and more convenient, as retailer scan complete the training in their own time. The results of the platform are already compelling: since February, the platform’s key assets which include documents like a “Healthy Play workbook”, “Operational Excellence” and “What is Challenge 25?” have been downloaded over 23,000 times, while the two training modules have been completed over 5600 times and counting.
Mohammed Rajak from Buywell Day Today in Glasgow said: “The new platform has really helped me train my staff by being able to download useful information and print it for them to read. We can either access the Retail Training Centre on my mobile, or use the printouts – which makes it easier. The modules are accessible within a couple of clicks which is useful for referring back to. I feel proud knowing my staff have done the training and we now have a certificate to prove it.”
Alex Green, Allwyn’s Director of Channel Operations, said: “We’re delighted with the initial uptake of our new digital training platform, with thousands of retailers having already signed up to complete the training and increase their knowledge of how to sell The National Lottery responsibly. As well as a newly embedded process in place to get new retailers signed up and using the platform even before they start trading, our digital-first approach will make distributing National Lottery training simpler and more effective. We’ll be able to issue new training immediately, keeping retailers completely up to date with the latest guidance and modules. We’d encourage all independent National Lottery retailers who haven’t already done so to sign up and start benefiting from our fantastic new platform.”
Fran Campbell, Sponge’s Client Director, said: “Allwyn’s primary objective for this training solution was to have a digital-first approach to their retail training. A platform that would be future-proof, convenient and engaging for retailers and, most importantly, one that would be accessible to all store staff without any barriers. We’re pleased we were able to deliver exactly this for Allwyn and their retailers with our learning platform, Spark, and are delighted it’s already producing incredible results.”
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ZEAL Network SE, the leading German online provider of lottery products, has started the new financial year with a strong growth spurt. In the first quarter of 2024, billings from lotteries climbed by 22% to € 246.3 million. Group revenue increased by 35.0% to € 36.1 million (2023: € 26.7 million). EBITDA at Group level increased slightly by 1% to € 9.4 million due to one-off effects and the almost doubling of marketing expenses compared to the previous year.
“We made a very strong start to 2024 and were able to significantly accelerate our revenue growth, particularly in our core business of lottery brokerage. We are also particularly proud of the fact that we were able to achieve EBITDA slightly above the previous year’s level in the past quarter despite almost doubling our marketing expenses and a negative one-off effect from a major win in our charity lottery Deutsche Traumhauslotterie amounting to € 0.8 million. This shows that our measures to acquire new customers are paying off very quickly and that we are generating income across the entire breadth of our customer base,” says Sebastian Bielski, CFO of ZEAL. “With the announced squeeze-out at LOTTO24, we are also putting ZEAL in the best possible position for the future and are leveraging further efficiency potential.”
Revenue in core business grows by 28 percent
ZEAL’s significant revenue growth in the first quarter is primarily due to the strong performance of the lottery business. Billings increased by 22% to € 246.3 million, while revenue from lotteries rose by as much as 28% to € 32.0 million (2023: € 24.9 million). The growth in billings is primarily due to the 21% increase in the average number of active customers per month (MAU). ZEAL was also able to improve the gross margin in the lottery business to 13.0% (2023: 12.4%) thanks to a change in the product mix and further margin optimizations. Excluding the one-off effect from the distribution of a major prize in the company’s charity lottery Deutsche Traumhauslotterie, the gross margin would have been as high as 13.3%.
Games business with significant revenue growth compared to Q4 2023
The games business, which was launched last year, also developed very positively in the first three months of the year. Compared to the fourth quarter of last year, ZEAL was able to increase revenue from games by around 20% from € 1.8 million to € 2.2 million. At 7.0%, the gross margin was stable compared to the previous quarters.
ZEAL was also able to further expand its games portfolio at the end of the quarter. The subsidiary LOTTO24 AG received permission to offer a further 64 games.
Stable result thanks to efficient expansion of future earnings base
ZEAL invested heavily in future growth in the past quarter, acquiring more than twice as many new customers (320 thousand) as in the same period of the previous year (2023: 143 thousand). The company achieved this customer growth much more efficiently than in the same period of the previous year. At € 33.04, the acquisition costs per registered new customer (cost per lead, CPL) were noticeably lower than in the previous year (2023: € 36.77). Due to the company’s strategic decision to use the exceptionally good jackpot situation in January 2024 for efficient new customer growth, marketing expenses of € 13.4 million were 91% higher than in the same period of the previous year (2023: € 7.0 million). As a result, other operating expenses rose to € 21.0 million (2023: € 12.5 million). As a result of the increased number of new customers and the growth of the games business, the direct costs of business operations also rose to € 4.0 million (2023: € 2.7 million).
At € 9.4 million, EBITDA was slightly higher than in the first quarter of the previous year (2023: € 9.3 million). At € 7.5 million, EBIT was 6% higher than in the same period of the previous year (2023: € 7.1 million) due to lower depreciation and amortization recognized in profit or loss. Net income for the period rose to € 21.1 million (2023: € 4.7 million) due to the first-time recognition of expected tax benefits from the utilization of existing tax loss carryforwards in connection with the LOTTO24 squeeze-out.
Due to the good results of the first quarter of 2024, ZEAL confirms the forecast published on March 20, 2024.
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Follows multi-state eInstant record jackpot award of $5.8 million
Instant Win Gaming (IWG), a leading supplier of eInstant games to NASPL and WLA-member lotteries, congratulates the New Hampshire Lottery on joining the Company’s multi-state eInstant progressive, Mega Money Jackpots.
The New Hampshire Lottery launched Jackpot Spectacular, its first game in the Mega Money Jackpots linked progressive pool, for players in the Granite State on April 24th. New Hampshire joins Pennsylvania and Virginia in offering Mega Money Jackpots linked games.
Additionally, IWG congratulates the Virginia Lottery along with its Mega Money Jackpots player who won a record-setting $5.8 million prize. The win sets another new U.S. iLottery record for the largest eInstant prize.
Mega Money Jackpots launched in July 2023, and over the past nine months the game has created eight millionaires. Since launch, more than 240 players across the participating lotteries have won Mega and Minor jackpots totaling more than $20 million.
The amount and frequency of these prizes showcases the excitement of IWG’s Mega Money Jackpots. To achieve this, select eInstants from participating lotteries each contribute a small percentage of the sales to fund the two progressive prize tiers, with IWG administering the settlement of jackpot prize monies on a turnkey basis.
The multi-state eInstant progressive jackpot is powered by IWG’s InstantJackpots. Since all functionality is contained within IWG’s InstantRGS (remote game server), no development support is required by a lottery’s iLottery platform provider. Additionally, new lotteries can join the system regardless of their iLottery platform provider.
Charlie McIntyre, Executive Director at New Hampshire Lottery, said: “Our industry has a proud track record of collaborating across state lotteries. We’re excited to join Mega Money Jackpots and to bring the excitement of it outsized prizes to our players. We know that our contribution will further enhance the game for everyone involved, and we look forward to creating some new millionaires here in New Hampshire.”
Rhydian Fisher, CEO at IWG, said: “Kudos to the team at New Hampshire Lottery. By joining Mega Money Jackpots, collectively we can award even more million dollar prizes to lottery players. Not only is the game frequently creating new millionaires, but it has also been a leading catalyst for new player signups. Fingers crossed that some new millionaires will be created in New Hampshire very soon.”
NOVOVISION is the solution of choice of National Lottery plc, the exclusive concessionaire of the national lottery of the Republic of Malta. The company operates a network of 240 licensed lottery shops, 170 of which are operated via a network of authorised distributors, while 70 are directly operated by the National Lottery of Malta. National Lottery offers a broad range of lottery products, sports betting, electronic gaming machines (EGMs) in the retail market. All products offered through the retail network are also offered online via three distinct ecommerce sites, offering casino, sports betting and lottery products.
The operator has implemented several modular NOVOVISION functionalities to support smooth business processes and maximum user convenience for the players. The NOVOVISION wallet serves as a unique single wallet solution for slots play and sports betting, and is supported by biometric fingerprint recognition to guarantee secure authentication for all wallet transactions.
NOVOVISION cash terminals have been deployed by the National Lottery of Malta with the aim to establish cashless payment transactions in the proprietary retail network. A total of 32 cash terminals have been installed in the shop network to date, half of which are the NCM 40 model and the other half the slim-line successor model NCM 70. This medium-capacity cash terminal provides reliable cash handling for mid-size venues with up to four possible denominations and 500 banknotes per cassette, as well as a 11” PCAP touch user interface. The robust cabinet guarantees best-in-class reliability and ease of use with excellent ergonomic positioning for all user interface units and front service access. A broad variety of options such as NFC reader, numeric keyboard, fingerprint scanner and full TITO capacities recommend this cash terminal for all operator requirements.
The rollout of the NOVOVISION cash terminals with the National Lottery of Malta started in July 2022, with 16 machines installed by the end of 2023, and was accelerated in 2024 with a further 16 terminals installed in March and the remaining 24 units pending delivery in the weeks to come. The terminals have been customised to perfectly fulfil the operator’s requirements and facilitate a number of processes, such as cashless top-up and withdrawals from the player’s NOVOVISION wallet, cash payout of the National Lottery’s EGM, lottery and sports betting tickets generated by third-party systems from a single terminal as well as the issuing of vouchers for non-dispensed cash.
“The implementation of the NOVOVISION product across our retail network is part of an innovative strategy that the Group has been pursuing over the past years. Our intent was to provide a customised solution for our retail customers via a single wallet across a diversified product portfolio. The NOVOVISION solution has proven to be an ideal solution for our environment and has been very well received by our customers. The product has enabled us to implement a process that is built on delivering efficiencies and enhancing our safety measures across the retail network. The customization of the product to our needs has been one of the most important elements of this project,” Franco de Gabriele, Chief Commercial Officer of National Lottery plc, said.
“Our solution for the National Lottery of Malta is a prime example of the high degree of customisation that NOVOVISION delivers – with a unique product that facilitates slots, lotteries and sports betting payments from a single cash terminal, while having a single wallet that caters for different products with the use of our NOVOVISION wallet solution. It allows for ultimate customer satisfaction. We are very grateful for the excellent cooperation with the teams of National Lottery plc in this project and particularly proud to provide a leading-edge cashless solution that brings so many benefits for both, the operator and its customers,” Werner Kearns, Sales Manager at NOVOMATIC Biometric Solutions, said.
The post Malta’s National Lottery Goes Cashless with NOVOVISION appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
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