What Supports U.S. Retailer Growth in the Lottery Category?

“Successful retailers base their decisions on data, particularly consistent data they can use across states,” said Gina Easley, IGT Senior Manager National Retail Accounts.

“C-Store and supermarket decision makers don't put anything on their shelves today if it's not rating high on Nielsen or IRI data. And the one category that's not included in these databases today is lottery,” added Steve Desautels, IGT Director Sales & Marketing Execution.

To fill this important need, IGT developed the Retail Market Insights® (RMI) tool, a national database that provides state lotteries and their retailers with the cross-jurisdictional lottery sales data they need to inform decision making.

“RMI pulls all that lottery sales data together and gives retailers a consolidated view, so they can operationalize it. It’s in a format they’re looking for and can use,” said Easley.

Among many benefits, participating lotteries and their retailers get immediate insights into how a lottery program is performing overall and how an individual state lottery’s retailers are performing in comparison to retailer sites in other jurisdictions. And, as more retailers recognize that lottery can be an important contributor to their business goals, RMI helps to inform their strategies to responsibly grow the category.

“Recently, the senior manager for the national convenience-store chain RaceTrac reached out to IGT as they were entering their 2024 planning session,” said Easley. “They had a detailed list of questions they needed help with ─ from consumer insights, overall category performance, and competitive analysis to SWOT analysis for the account overall.”

“I was able to work with IGT’s RMI analysts to consolidate the view into a thorough presentation, all through RMI ─ taking a look at the retailer’s performance against competitors as well as across all of their jurisdictions,” said Easley. “Without RMI and that consolidated view, it would have been a long, difficult process. But we were able to achieve it in less than a week, and the retailer’s feedback was that it was the best consolidated lottery view they’ve ever seen. I think there's going to be even more category development by the retailer leading from just this one request.”

“Another example is how we've been able to work with the major grocery chain Kroger to improve its lottery sales, which ultimately becomes helpful for multiple jurisdictions,” said Desautels. “With the support of RMI data, the retailer found that putting a large jackpot sign above a lottery vending machine (LVM) not only helped bring more awareness to the LVM itself, but made shoppers who wanted to play lottery aware that they could go there to get their numbers for Powerball and Mega Millions. The retailer wanted to expand the same strategy to other jurisdictions, and we quickly started working to support this effort with other states where the retailer sells lottery."