Tipos, Slovakia’s national lottery company, has confirmed significant year-on-year success from its instant lotteries, despite the impact of the ongoing COVID pandemic on overall lottery sales.
The lottery stated that despite the sale of lottery tickets waning as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and despite losses during the first wave of the pandemic, sales of lottery tickets are still thriving as at the end of November it had paid almost €40m to winners.
Tipos commented that in the first wave of the pandemic, the first and second quarters of 2020, it saw a significant proportion of its players move from brick-and-mortar stores to the internet.
Marek Kaňka, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors at Tipos, said: “This was also reflected in the sale of instant lotteries or lottery tickets. During the first wave of the pandemic, due to the closed almost all sales points, sales of instant wins and number lotteries decreased by up to 12%.
“We had to react quickly to stop the significant decline. However, thanks to the new marketing plan and especially its effective implementation, we caught up very quickly with this loss.”
Tipos stated that based on its sales data, the popularity of scratch cards, despite the pandemic, is not significantly marked. Kaňka said: “In the 11 months of this year, we have already sold almost 36 million pieces of lottery tickets from various issues. And we paid out an incredible €39.5m in winnings.”
Stanislav Molnár, Managing Director of the Products Section and Board of Directors Member at Tipos, added: “As mentioned earlier, this year is specific. Closed stores during the pandemic negatively affected sales. Nevertheless, we managed to achieve increased interest in lottery tickets by modernising the portfolio of tickets offered by us. Our numbers prove it, too.
“The initial slowdown in sales in the first half of the year we were able to catch up and the numbers improved significantly. We managed to achieve sales at the level of last year, where we saw an increase of 13% at the time. Moreover, to date, we have paid out a total of 3% more in winnings than last year.”
Tipos added that its most successful lottery ticket of the year was the premium lottery ticket ‘High Game’, which launched in mid-June.
Molnár said: “Although naturally, we had high expectations from this new lottery ticket, demand for it broke records. In less than six weeks, we sold 350,000 lottery tickets. We are now selling the third issue. Thanks to the High Game draw alone, we paid out winnings worth more than €5.1m.”
Last week, the lottery also announced it will end 2020 with a record turnover.
