Ade Repcenko, CEO of Malta-based Spinola Gaming says the lottery sector must band together to protect its market share or suffer the consequences.
In a statement last week, Repcenko said, “In a time when people are keeping their distance, it’s important that we stick together to make sure lottery survives, not dies.”
According to Spinola, a small number of retail and online providers currently drive the industry from a technology perspective, and in most cases, a lottery will utilize one provider under a long-term agreements that prohibits the use of external or additional technologies. The company contends that these “restrictive agreements” make it harder for state-run operators to get online and continue to generate revenue, as their existing providers don’t have the appropriate technologies or capabilities to get clients online quickly.
“It’s time for the lottery sector to unite and join forces, to help each other and our clients for the greater good by working together on utilizing technologies that enable all of us to add value to our existing relationships, which helps our clients continue to raise funds and generate revenues for good causes,” said Repcenko. “Most importantly, we cannot let alternate options become more attractive to players than the games they are used to playing every week.”
The CEO said the global lottery sector faces its biggest challenge ever with the Covid-19 contagion; he believes it will propel the industry online earlier than planned.
“Operators could take a leaf out of the online casino business model that treats affiliates in the same way that retailers are to lotteries. The affiliate model is easily implemented, requires no new forms of technology or advanced development and allows both operator and retailer to take advantage of the current situations,” suggested Repcenko. “At the same time, operators need to appeal to their existing software providers to look at ways in which they can remain active during these troubled times and will require a level of compromise from both sides. Operators need to look at new forms of revenue sharing to allow for the affiliate model to work and software providers need to open up to working with new and modern forms of technology to be able to provide the level of service that these state run operators very desperately need right now.”
The online sector has proven to be much more resistant to the current climate than retail, as is shown by the growth of third-party operators. However, to compete with these companies, there are many innovative digital lottery solutions on the market to help national operators and their software providers get online quickly. As lottery players begin to adapt to the global lockdown by moving online, the traditional lottery sector must do the same to keep their market share, or else it could be gone by the time retail reopens, he said.
Spinola Gaming is a lottery software provider for government and state-run lotteries, land based and online gaming operators, and online B2B platform providers.
