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// PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL // July/August 2016
Creating the Truly Open, Fluid, Dynamic Infrastructure
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a better consumer experience as well as
operational efficiencies. The other CPG
brands are meeting and exceeding these
increased expectations. Some of them
are even leading the way. Lottery needs
to do the same to preserve its high-pro-
file space in the retail environment.
Further to that, Lottery needs go
where the consumers are going, which
is beyond our traditional channels of
C-stores and grocery stores. We need to
penetrate new venues like quick service
restaurants, transportation hubs, hos-
pitality locations, and other non-tradi-
tional venues and POS’s. There is a so-
lution that enables us to meet the needs
for more efficiently serving and sup-
porting the heightened expectations of
our retail partners. It has been deployed
by lotteries internationally, but we are
slow to adopt it in the U.S. And it’s a
solution that we must approach not as
individual lotteries or a particular ven-
dor, but collectively as an industry. The
solution is the API—Application Pro-
gramming Interface. Our panel is going
to delve into the details of API. Ours is
a $70 billion industry that is capable of
taking this step towards modernization.
The standard API enables retailers to in-
tegrate our business into their systems
on a national scale rather than reinvent-
ing the IT infrastructure on a state-by-
state basis. It’s not without challenges,
some of which may be daunting, but the
benefits are a game changer for us. And
the reason to do it is to increase sales
and net funds to good causes. Let’s start
with Gardner …
Gardner Gurney:
The API can be
thought of as the secure IT handshake
that enables communication, and data
transactions, to happen the same way
every time. Both receiver and sender can
know that the data is being transacted
securely and accurately. Your own ex-
isting internal control system and your
gaming system already operate with an
API. What gets programmed into your
internal control system is executed in
your gaming system and data is trans-
mitted back and forth between the two.
You need the common communication
language provided by the API for that
to happen. So, lotteries are already us-
ing API’s internally. We just need to
work collectively to create the API that
enables us to integrate as a group with
our retailers.
For retailers it really is about being
able to build reports quickly and eas-
ily. The retailer does not want to go to
14 different IT hubs to get information
that is produced in 14 different formats.
They need to go to one place where it is
already assembled for them to seamlessly
pull it down into their own system.
The API delivers a win/win solution.
It just enables everyone to communi-
cate in the same programming language.
Outputs, inputs, and responses are all in
the same language. For instance, we are
in the middle of replacing our winning
numbers app. We told the new vendor
that they must integrate with the exist-
ing API that we already built. We’re not
going to rebuild it for you or commu-
nicate with you on a different platform
with different processes and protocols. I
require this of our vendors, and Retailers
want us, the community of lottery op-
erators, to do the same for them. That is,
to collaborate and produce an API that
enables them to interact with us, get
data and reports and communicate with
us, in a single standardized way.
Another example - we use a state-wide
contract and system to support the pro-
cessing of debit and credit card transac-
tions for subscriptions. This is enabled
by an API that gets some of the best rat-
ings by the users, as well as delivering a
lower cost for us, because it’s for the en-
tire state, not just for the lottery. It’s just
about being creative and being flexible.
Carole Hedinger:
We are all so lim-
ited by our closed systems that System A
can’t talk to System B. And now, it’s not
only the multistate retailers that are de-
manding that we upgrade our IT. In-state
single-owner retailers are also consolidat-
ing into multi-store operations that need
the data to be aggregated, and for the
communications systems to be stream-
lined in the ways enabled by the API.
We need to look at our retailers as our
customers. Consumers buy the product,
but retailers are our first customers. We
need to treat retailers the way the produc-
ers of other products treat their customers.
We need to meet their needs for conve-
nience and operational efficiency. Current
processes are simply not doing that.
Paul Riley:
Our industry needs a stan-
dard API for our offer to be compelling to
the modern retailer. That is what enables
the retailer to integrate seamlessly with
the $70 billion industry that the U.S.
Lottery industry represents. The retailers
want to make this happen. They just need
us to modernize, and for them that means
implementing a standardized API.
As Gardner pointed out, APIs actually
permeate all of our lives already. When-
ever we post something to Facebook,
buy something at Amazon, or watch a
movie on Netflix … all of these activities
are enabled by API’s. If we could make it
easier for retailers to interact with us on
a communications and operational level,
that would unlock a whole new level of
ease and efficiency. The impact of that
on sales and net funds to good causes is
potentially profound.