Marco Tasso, Chief Operating Officer of Italian and International Lottery Operations at Brightstar Lottery, writes for Lottery Daily about the secret keys to success for lottery operators.
Our company’s recently announced transformation from IGT Lottery to Brightstar Lottery is more than a name change. It represents a renewed, optimistic vision for how we aim to apply our nearly 50-year history of reliability, innovation, and leadership in lottery to enhance value for customers. Brightstar is focused on putting our customers’ needs first and innovating to help lotteries remain relevant, responsible, and engaging.
In an environment of shifting player expectations and a profusion of gaming choices, lottery is a unique and dynamic industry, generating funds that deliver important benefits for causes and communities around the world. We aim to elevate lotteries and inspire players through forward-looking products and strategies to enhance digitalization, retail innovation, and sustainability.
As Brightstar, we will build on a legacy of delivering unparalleled player experiences and results for lottery customers around the globe and across the lottery value chain, including as a lottery operator, provider of retail and digital systems and technology, instant ticket services provider, and game creator.
Close working partnerships with our customers, listening to their feedback and acting upon it, and the unique perspective we offer as both a supplier and a successful operator, will directly inform how we serve customers’ goals. We aim to fast-track innovation and offer a clear vision and innovative solutions that are consciously aligned with player expectations to help customers navigate the path.
Our approach to empowering lotteries’ success focuses on four interconnected areas, starting with enabling play anywhere. Here, we have a strong foundation in our longstanding market leadership in advanced retail point of sale technology, with modular terminals and self-service solutions that bring lottery closer to players at retail.
We have introduced award-winning innovations such as LotteryLink, a pocket-sized device to easily expand lottery sales in-lane, and capabilities like our Connected Play solution to bridge the retail and digital channels, giving players a more seamless purchase and play experience.
The second area of focus is game innovation to engage players with more exciting, fresh, and winning experiences. For example, players can experience more strategic ways to play with Cash Pop, a draw game that is attracting new groups of players in 16 jurisdictions and growing organically into a national game. Our advanced Infinity Instants printing platform has opened the door to entirely new game mechanics.
Brightstar’s digital game studios have developed a diverse, engaging game Portfolio, with more than 200 eInstant games across categories—including bespoke licensed-branded options and record-breaking progressive jackpots. The studios are now developing around three dozen new eInstant games annually, bolstered by AI-driven creative and testing. And we retain our standout licensed properties, which offer recognizable titles that resonate with players across instant and eInstant formats.
Third is helping to build stronger connections with players. This includes the ability to leverage AI-driven tools and predictive analytics through CRM systems and our Player Marketing Services, to help lotteries enhance player engagement, optimise campaign targeting and delivery, and drive sales growth through iLottery and Connected Play.
This pillar also includes unique on-site tools such as Brightstar’s new digital menu board solution, which enhances the visibility of instant games at the retail point of sale and is integrated with the lottery terminal application, making it easy for retailers to update their digital menu displays to reflect current game inventory in real time.
And the fourth area of focus is centered on reshaping the lottery landscape with efficiency and scalability, continuing to push the boundaries of what is possible to deliver smarter, faster, and more efficient solutions.
Migrating customers’ systems to the cloud, for example, is a game-changer for scalability, adaptability, and deployment speed. Through AI and machine learning integration, our cloud solutions are already enabling faster time-to-market, more seamless feature updates, and enhanced performance tailored to customers’ needs. Upgrading the iLottery platform to our seamless, scalable cloud solution has brought up to a 20% revenue increase to our customers.
Also part of this pillar is our ability to offer cross-jurisdictional insights, a data-centric approach that enables lotteries to make better informed decisions and create tangible operational improvements. And we will continue working to expand the availability of cashless payment options across retail and vending, aligning with evolving player preferences and market trends.
