INTERNET SERVICES

Consumers around the world have adopted the Internet as a focal point for recreation and entertainment spending.  While recognition of that opportunity has led to the growth of Internet lottery sales in Europe and Canada, lotteries in the United States continue to move slowly into this consumer transaction channel. 

While the U.S. lottery industry has yet to conduct the first Internet lottery transaction, domestic lottery executives surveyed by trade publisher TLF Publications for a recent industry tracking study clearly see the potential. Over 90% agree that eventually most lotteries will sell products over the Internet. And Scientific Games is playing an important role in getting U.S. lotteries ready for the opportunity when it comes.

Scientific Games Internet Design Services (SGIDS) has become the leading third party provider of Internet services to the domestic lottery industry, developing and managing websites that enable lottery consumers to establish on-line player accounts and process transactions in the form of second chance ticket entries. We pioneered the system of integrating mail-in and Internet-generated entries for lottery second chance drawings in 2001 and have successfully developed and managed close to 200 such websites for lottery customers in 23 states.

In 2007 alone, we launched new websites at the rate of more than one per week, 66% more than the previous year.

SGIDS provides second chance entry websites as part of a broader scope of available second chance promotional services that also includes drawing management services for drawings that include both physical entries and web-based “virtual entries,” web-based lottery player affinity sites (typically known in the industry as “VIP clubs”), and other types of player information websites, along with a variety of Flash-based applications that add entertainment value to the lottery play experience.

Utilizing processes developed by SG’s Game Development Group, in 2005 SGIDS introduced systems enabling real-time validation of entries.  The validation system has been used for over 130 second-chance eligible games in 12 states, most notably Tennessee, where the Lottery’s Play It Again program invites players to enter drawings with any of more than 60 instant games in the market at any given time.