The global lottery sector is undergoing rapid change, one which is being driven by digital innovation and a radical shift in consumer behaviour, writes Lucy Buckley, Allwyn’s Portfolio Lead.
Allwyn has been at the center of this, using technology and product design to grow participation across Europe, ensuring that lotteries are more exciting, relevant, and safe for the 33 million (and growing) customers in our markets.
But to drive innovation and change, you must embody it. Lottery operators that fail to do so will always struggle to deliver it for the good of their customers and partners. That’s why at Allwyn UK, we take a different strategy to the competitors in our field – women make up more than 50% of the senior leadership team that has driven our application for the Fourth National Lottery Licence.
Whilst this statistic shouldn’t really need to be pointed out, it is a frustratingly rare thing to find in the lottery industry, a sector that has traditionally struggled to diversify and evolve. This isn’t to say that experience and wise minds don’t matter, but so many organisations struggle to innovate because they don’t have the right balance of new ideas and perspectives to challenge old ways of doing things.
The talented changemakers who have contributed thousands of hours of work and hundreds of pages of documents to Allwyn’s application have brought this much needed balance.
I have delved deep into more than a decade’s worth of experience in the gaming sector to reimagine what lotteries should look like in the 21st century. And whilst I can’t disclose any specific application details, I believe there’s only one way to reinvigorate any portfolio: to really understand your consumers.
With the advances that have been made in technology and the ability to analyse thousands of customer touch points, there really isn’t an excuse for not understanding what your customer needs now, tomorrow, and in ten years’ time.
Allwyn’s 33 million customers across Europe would agree with this notion. Our parent company’s use of cutting-edge tech both online and in retail has driven lottery participation rates of adults in Greece, Austria, Italy and the Czech Republic to an average above 70%.
While Allwyn’s emphasis on technology in its European operations drives sales, retailer commission, and funds for good causes, our team also understands the social responsibility we hold as a lottery operator. It isn’t just about making the best games that are most appealing to a wide range of people, it’s also about making sure that they’re safe and we do so through a rigorous process of risk assessment.
Social value sits at the heart of Allwyn’s operations. Harriet Jameson, our Good Causes lead, who’s experience of innovating in social change for almost a decade at Comic Relief has been invaluable to the application, has embedded this into the company by living, thinking and breathing these issues in the way we run our business.
This has unified our changemakers, which also includes Sharon Doherty, Anna Dearlove, Karen Revel-Chion, Emma Young and Giselle Pettyfer, behind the single goal of making lotteries better, as Allwyn has done across the continent for the past decade.
The National Lottery has only ever known one operator since its inception in 1994. In a matter of weeks, Allwyn will discover whether we will be chosen to take this institution boldly forwards into a new era. The changemakers stand ready to do so.
