Throughout the Christmas season, Lottery Daily will be revisiting some of the biggest stories of the lottery business world from the past year. This edition will be looking at stories from January and February of 2021.
January
Jackpocket launches lottery app in New York state
Jackpocket, the only licensed third-party lottery app in the US, launched its app in New York state.
New Yorkers gained the ability to play Powerball, Mega Millions, New York Lotto, Cash4Life, Win 4, Take 5, Pick 10 and Numbers on their mobile thanks to its introduction.
The launch in the Empire State came as both Mega Millions and Powerball draws reached a jackpot of over $500m. The lottery app provided New Yorkers with an easy, secure way to order official state lottery tickets from their smartphones.
Read the full story here.
Brent Hoberman: UK needs ‘fresh perspectives’ to revitalise National Lottery
Sazka Group’s Brent Hoberman CBE believed the UK government faced a critical choice in revitalising the National Lottery to allow a vital institution and funding resource to be modernised and to break its ‘current status quo’.
Writing in an opinion piece for City AM, the former founder of Lastminute.com stated that any plans of ‘levelling up’ the UK by the government required significant help from the National Lottery.
However, if things remained the same, Hoberman thought the lottery will struggle to support the government’s agenda in a post-Covid world.
Read the full story here.
February
Sky Lotto closes due to a lack of ‘distinct point of difference’
Sky Betting and Gaming told Lottery Daily that it would close its Sky Lotto service as it ‘no longer provided customers with a distinct point of difference,’ compared to the company’s wider product offering.
Sky Lotto hosted the final draws of its Daily Lotto and Super Lotto products on February 11 and February 12 respectively.
Read the full story here.
Lottery.com enters definitive agreement with Trident Acquisitions Corp to become publicly traded
Online lottery platform AutoLotto Inc (Lottery.com) entered into a definitive agreement with Trident Acquisitions Corp for a business combination that would result in Lottery.com becoming a publicly listed company.
Founded in 2015, Lottery.com allows users to play the lottery from their phone and on the go, offering official state-sanctioned lottery games like Powerball, Mega Millions and state games where permitted.
It was estimated that the combined company post-business combination enterprise would have a value of approximately $526m.
Read the full story here.
NeoPollard ilottery network records $2bn in FY 2020
NeoPollard Interactive LLC (NPi) congratulated its customer network on the collective fiscal year 2020 results of $2bn in topline sales.
NPi’s ilottery partners (Michigan, Virginia, New Hampshire, and North Carolina Education Lotteries) grew topline sales by 89% from the previous fiscal year.
Read the full story here.