Jumbo Interactive’s inaugural investor forum on Wednesday saw the Australian firm set out its ambition to become the leading specialists in the digital lottery sphere.
Hosted in Brisbane, the presentation contained a thorough examination of Jumbo’s work to date and its vision for the future.
Mike Veverka, CEO and Founder of Jumbo, noted a primary factor in its success so far has been its “laser-like focus” on lotteries, with a mission to make them easier for players and partners.
“Lotteries can get complicated and we are trying to remove a lot of this complexity,” he said.
“And again, that will drive growth. So the result of this mission is our vision to become the number one choice in digital lottery and services around the world.”
While stressing that Australia remains the “number one priority”, Veverka has outlined areas that the company is targeting for significant growth, including the “UK, the government sector, in Canada, also the government sector, and also Software-as-aService (SaaS) opportunities.
“The elephant in the room is obviously the US and there’s a lot going on there. It’s a complicated market, but it is one that we’re monitoring, and it does represent a future for Jumbo.
“We certainly feel that charity is an area that has been overlooked by the market and is a key focus for us.”
Nonetheless, Richard Bateson, COO, suggested caution is required when approaching the US market.
“We also want to see increased competition,” he said. “We want to see a market being created by having the nonstandard oligopolistic vendors in what’s a relatively constrained market into a market where you’ve got more Neogames. You’ve got the likes of Rush Street Interactive who are rumoured to be in Connecticut, Instant Win Gaming.
“Jumbo will be and can be part of that. We will be looking to have more and more competition because best of breed will mean that we are in an advantageous state to capitalise.
“Our model is quite simple. Our strategy is we maximise what we have in Australia, we look to replicate that in other markets, particularly in the government side and so therefore taking the Australian office model into these markets is going to be really critical.”
Veverka also emphasised the increase of “digital penetration” in the industry.
“It’s that unstoppable march towards digital, which is being powered by technology,” he added. “We have this laser-like focus on player experience. We do offer a best-in-class user experience. It always has been, and while I’m around, always will be.
“We offer players more ways to win via our government offerings, as well as charity games, innovative ways to play Lotto Party and AutoPlay.”
Currently, 70% of Jumbo’s players are under the age of 50, a statistic that is the cornerstone of the company’s digital focus.
Additionally, there is a conscious effort to “refresh” games, with Jumbo expecting the Oz Lotto to become “a lot more dominant” than previously.
Meanwhile, Melissa Cowan, Principal Growth Marketer, outlined Jumbo’s growth marketing strategy.
“We have three main areas of focus in growth marketing.
“Acquisition, which is focused on the acquiring of new players to the site and app.
“Nurture, which is focused on engaging players. So encouraging them to come back for that repeat purchase, engage with another product or another game.
“And then our nature initiative, which is focused on retaining existing customers or retention goals.”
Concluding, Veverka stressed the importance of ensuring Jumbo is ready to meet the demands of increased business.
“We are very conscious of the importance of scalability and we’re trying to build it into the business at every level to make sure that as the business continues to grow, the financial results will follow.
“We certainly learned this lesson in the early days when we spent a lot of money on the system thinking I hope this thing grows. It certainly did. In fact, it grew faster than we anticipated and in hindsight we wish we had invested a bit more, we would’ve made more out of it.
“So we certainly believe in the growth and we’re just making sure that we get it right so we maximise the scalability.”
