MAGAZINE OF THE EUROPEAN LOTTERIES, 2011, SEPTEMBER ...

THE NATIONAL LOTTERY COMPANY OF IRELAND:
“CURRENT AND CALL TO ACTION” CONTENT
In a world of digital gaming entertainment, competitiveness
requires innovation, flexibility and most of all
a constant presence everywhere. The National Lottery
Company (NLC) of Ireland has therefore implemented a
plan to both attract new players and provide an improved
experience for existing players on all platforms.
Knowing that many of its products are impulse purchases
and relying on research analysis, the NLC decided to
place digital signage at points of sale to grab players’ attention.
The content as well as the strategic placement of
these screens are important factors. For each NLC draw
game, the digital screens show the current increasing
jackpot amount and a countdown in minutes to the next
draw. The signage is located facing the direction of the
normal queue at cash registers for maximum effect to interest
players in particular games and educate them with
real time information directly downloaded from the National
Lottery’s central system. Currently, the Lottery has
installed digital signage in 100 stores and expects to implement
this technology in 1000 stores by the end of 2011.
The result will be an incremental lift in sales, especially
during periods of large jackpots. The current NLC retail
network is comprised of over 3,700 stores throughout the
Republic of Ireland, all connected to the central Lottery
system in Dublin, using wired broadband.
Another improvement is being trialed in selected supermarkets
throughout Ireland. To increase overall store
sales and the number of points of sale in supermarkets,
some lottery product sales activities have been transferred
to small quick-pick terminals at individual checkouts
supplementing the traditional lottery sales at the
customer service desk.
ONLINE AND MOBILE PRESENCE
FOR THE NLC
Last June, the NLC decided to consolidate its two
websites into a single site to make online registration
an easier task and provide a more efficient online
experience for both players and visitors. The
site now offers a choice between English and Gaelic
(Irish language) and all the popular features (e.g.
previous draw results, information on future draws,
etc.) are just one click away. This redesigned website
has resulted in a 10% increase in regular visitors and
players alike as well as the time spent (up by 20%)
searching the site. On days with large jackpots, the
site receives over 120,000 visitors. Another element
emphasizing the Lottery’s willingness to be more ac-
LOTTERY & TECHNOLOGY
cessible has been the new Web service enabling third
party sites to read draw results automatically from
the NLC website. The NLC is also present on mobile
devices with new iPhone applications, allowing users
to check draw results and generate quick-pick numbers
right on their smartphone.
11 NEWS 37 SEPTEMBER 2011