60 / 76
60
// PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL // January/February 2016
to its future, but when you think about
the nature of what people do with us it
is actually very transactional. People want
to get in, buy a ticket and get out fairly
quickly. Mobile works very well for this,
while the other side of our business, the
instant play games, also work nicely on a
mobile device.
Also, last summer, we partnered with
the British bank Barclays to offer The Na-
tional Lottery on their mobile payment
service—Barclays Pingit. This provides
smartphone users with a great ‘quick
pay and play’ experience, offering play-
ers even greater access and convenience,
and enhancing our existing online pay-
ment options. It’s a much quicker reg-
istration experience because all Barclays
Pingit customers are pre-vetted—so we
know they’re over 16, we know they’re a
resident of the UK—and they don’t then
have to go through the full registration
process. We also offer free National Lot-
tery Official Apps for both iPhone and
Android, which are very popular.
The great news is that all this hard work
and investment has paid off. Our most re-
cent half-year sales results saw interactive
sales up 18.5%. Crucially, sales through
mobile surged by 72% on 2014/15—
with sales through smartphones and tab-
lets now accounting for over 35% of all
sales across our direct channels.
Camelot has succeeded at growing your land-
based retail sales right alongside your online
sales. How did you, and do you continue
to, engender support and commitment from
your land-based retail channel for the “omni-
channel” distribution model?
A. Duncan:
With all this talk about
the success of our website, it’s easy to for-
get that retail sales still make up around
80% of all National Lottery sales. Our
retailers do a great job for us because we
offer a competitive commission structure
and because having The National Lottery
in their store adds even further value to
their business—as someone may come in
to buy a ticket or Scratchcard, and then
go on to buy something else. To put it
into context, established independent
retailers—I’m talking about small, fami-
ly-run stores here—earned an average of
over £6,500 from The National Lottery
alone in 2014/15.
So, while interactive growth is acceler-
ating, our retail channel is still growing
alongside our digital offering—albeit at
a slower rate. For us, it’s all about im-
proving access. For example, we recently
rolled out 10,000 standalone terminals
to satisfy untapped demand for National
Lottery Scratchcards. Catering to people’s
changing lifestyles and shopping habits
is where the new mobile-friendly website
comes into play.
We are also looking at ways we can
bring mobile and retail closer together.
For example, last year, we launched our
first second-chance Scratchcard where
players with non-winning tickets can go
to a microsite to register for a second
chance to win. This has proved a hugely
successful mechanic, with over 2.3 mil-
lion entries into the second-chance draw
so far. And, later this year, we’re going to
be experimenting with QR codes on the
physical retail tickets. Players will be able
to check their results if they scan the code
through our apps. It’s all about looking at
ways of enhancing our player experience
in the round—and not to the detriment
of any one channel.
Camelot has struggled with the actions of the
Health Lottery and People’s Postcode Lottery,
which exploit a loophole in the regulatory
laws (allowing the operation of small local
charitable organizations to operate lotteries)
to create competition to The National Lot-
tery. Tipp24 sells lottery products into Ger-
many and other jurisdictions in violation of
the laws of those countries. Now Lottoland
and others are taking that business model to
a new level. Where will it all end? What is
the future of the single-operator Government-
Lottery model?
A. Duncan:
We have long been con-
cerned about larger, umbrella-style lotter-
ies—which have positioned themselves as
direct competitors of The National Lot-
tery. We see them as a real threat to our
ongoing success. To be clear, and as you
mention, I am not talking about small,
local lotteries—like those for hospices or
air ambulances. We have co-existed with
those for many years and think they do
fantastic work in their local communities.
I am talking about businesses like the
People’s Postcode Lottery and the Health
Lottery—which return significantly less
to society while seemingly retaining a dis-
proportionate percentage of revenue in
operating costs. These are real and pres-
ent threats to The National Lottery.
We also believe that bets on lotteries
—like those offered by Tipp24 and Lot-
toland—do not meet basic levels of trans-
parency because they do not clearly make
the distinction between lotteries and bet-
ting. As a result, they mislead consumers
and trade on the good name of lotteries
for—in the main—commercial gain.
Thankfully, here in the UK, we have
been very pleased with the initial re-
sponse from Government officials who
recognise the effectiveness of the single-
operator model on which The National
Lottery is based. As other lottery opera-
tors around the world will know, as a mo-
nopoly business, your competition is lim-
Andy Duncan Interview
…
continued from page 23