EveryMatrix remains set on its goals for 2023 after cultivating strong connections to the lottery space, despite the difficulties of entering this highly-regulated sector from the more commercial betting and gaming realms.
Outlining the firm’s lottery operations and ambitions to SBC Media, EveryMatrix Head of Lottery Sales, Frank Cecchini, explained how the company is applying its commercial experience to support lottery operators.
“Lotteries are often governed by different sets of rules,” he said. “They often report to a different branch of government or Ministry than commercial licensing would be, so in some ways it’s easier but in other ways it’s more difficult in they are far more, shall we say, conservative.
“They are very hot on responsible gaming, making sure that no player gets squeezed too much by the operator, making sure that people stay within their abilities and their bandwidth to spend money on the platform.
“The primary difficulty, generally speaking, is the amount of time it takes. The decision making process is much longer and long winded. A lot of the business is done by RFPs which takes time and resources to respond to. It is challenging and the barriers to entry are very high.”
However, with state-backed lottery operators outsourcing a number of supply contracts to B2B firms – of which Cecchini noted EveryMatrix is one of the main three companies doing so – opportunities are present.
Overcoming these barriers to entry, EveryMatrix has been able to leverage its experience from more commercial sectors to assist lotteries with staying competitive, the company’s Head of Lottery Sales observed.
“We know what we’re good at. We’re good at content, payments, the supplier management side of things with responsible gaming. But CRM is not our game so we make it easier for third parties to connect to our system.
“It doesn’t take six months and a hugely expensive project to, for example, connect up to move into our system so the lottery can do some excellent player segmentation.
“That is a key difference in the openness and the flexibility of the system. If they want to be able to do that, then they need to move to a platform that is more flexible, and has modules that can be plugged in or plugged out and replaced by other modules.”
On this topic, Cecchini noted that although lotteries are meeting heightened competition from commercial operators, providers can actually learn much from their privately-owned rivals, particularly regarding utilisation of content.
He explained: “There is a far greater range of content in the commercial world. The EverMatrix platform has 21,000 games from 150 different providers.
“Not all of that content will be appropriate for lotteries, but some of it is. Players want that content, they want to see new stuff.”
