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// PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL // September/October 2015
From the Publisher
By Paul Jason, Publisher
Public Gaming International Magazine
Congratulations to the
Major Peter J. O’Connell Lottery In-
dustry Lifetime Award
recipients
Gardner Gurney
(Executive
Deputy Director of the New York State Gaming Commission and
Acting Director of the Division of the Lottery) and
Larry Loss
(Executive Vice President, Iowa Lottery) are well-known to most
of you. It is such a pleasure to honor these industry leaders who
have served in top executive positions for decades. These are the
operators who really know this business and apply the hands-on
management that is responsible for the long-term growth and pros-
perity of the government-gaming industry. Their service to the in-
dustry and their guidance to us individually is so appreciated!
Also appreciated are three women who created a most unusual
collaboration in the service of our industry.
Edith McCarthy,
Gayle Kennedy, and Chryssa Amanatidou
are the event plan-
ners and coordinators for IGT, Scientific Games, and INTRALOT.
Recognizing that the results of their efforts to serve their own com-
pany as well as the industry could best be served by setting aside
differences, they began many years ago to work closely together to
ensure that industry conferences and trade-shows were produced
with class, style, and precision to meet the needs of everyone –of
their many other collaborators like NASPL, EL, WLA, PGRI, all
the other vendor exhibitors, etc. and of course, of the attendees
to the events. Their example is an inspiration to all of us whose
service to this industry could be enhance by creative open-mind-
edness to working more cooperatively with others. We may not
agree on much else, but where there is an opportunity to produce
a better result by collaborating, let’s set aside our differences and
pull together for the benefit of everyone.
We look forward to honoring our award recipients at PGRI Lot-
tery Expo!
Classical economics presupposes that people act in their own
self-interest, and in a basically rational manner. While economists
have always known that people do not always behave rationally,
the basic idea has always been that irrational behavior is the excep-
tion. And it is easier to test, measure, and analyze behavior us-
ing models based on rational decision-making. There is mounting
evidence to suggest, though, that human behavior is riddled with
cognitive biases and barriers, with emotionally-driven factors that
can diverge significantly from traditional notions of rational self-
interest. Behavioral economics is the study of how these a-rational
emotional and psychological factors inform the whole decision-
making process and drive human behavior.
Nobel award winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman and Dan
Ariely, author of Predictable Irrational (whose presentation we saw
three months ago at the EL Congress in Oslo), as well as others
engaged in the new field of Behavioral Economics, are finding that
while the factors that drive decisions and actions are not neces-
sarily logical and rational, these underlying emotional factors and
cognitive biases can be analyzed, their drivers be modeled, and the
impacts (to some extent) be predicted.
The desire to win a jackpot, for instance, is a behavioral impulse
that is consistent with the classical economics model of how hu-
mans make decisions and behave. To be sure, it will always be a
major driver for lottery player behavior. I am wondering, though,
how Lottery might be able to tap into these other underlying fac-
tors that drive consumer behavior. That is the focus of some of the
articles in this issue as well as conference presentations and panel
discussions that are making the rounds and will be addressed at
PGRI Lottery Expo Miami.
Another common theme that courses through many of the edi-
torials in this issue is the need to Ask the Right Questions. One
of the criteria for that end is to frame questions so they point us
towards truly actionable answers. And away from ambitious and
interesting but ultimately unproductive discourse. Do we need, for
instance, to create a different player experience that appeals to the
young adult? Or do we need, instead, to focus more on how the
changes we make to existing games are actually perceived by the
player? Getting a better understanding for how each game attribute
is perceived by the player, and then endeavoring to convert that
understanding into game design and messaging that enhances the
appeal of the existing game attributes, is a more actionable proj-
ect than the vaguely ambitious goal of inventing a whole game or
player experience. Maybe “How can we improve the impact/ef-
fectiveness of our advertising” should be changed to “What drives
consumers to buy” which would lead us towards social media. If
word-of-mouth is a more powerful driver of consumer behavior
and buying decisions, maybe we need to make budgetary changes
to reflect that reality. How to enhance the player experience for
Instants as the means to curbing the increase in prize payout could
become: How do we appeal to a broader spectrum of play-styles
and motivations and build a balanced portfolio to meet the diversi-
ty of consumer needs. Instead of asking how Lottery can compete
with other game categories, better to focus on what Lottery can do
to optimize the player experience by appealing to the rich variety
of underlying emotional drivers.
Thank you for your support - See you at Lottery Expo Miami,
G2E Las Vegas, and NASPL Dallas!
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