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| Vol. 34 No. 5 -- Monday February 6, 2006 |
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WEST GREENWICH, Rhode Island, USA (January 31, 2006) -- GTECH Holdings Corporation today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, GTECH Corporation, has signed a long-term agreement with the North Carolina Education Lottery to provide a fully-integrated online and instant ticket lottery system, lottery terminals, a wireless communications network, Instant Ticket Vending Machines (ITVMs), management of warehousing and distribution of instant tickets, and ongoing services. Under this agreement, GTECH has also partnered with Oberthur Gaming Technologies Corporation (OGT) for the printing of instant tickets. The seven-year agreement is expected to commence on March 30, 2006, the anticipated launch date for instant ticket games, and follows a competitive procurement process.
"We are extremely gratified to be chosen as the full-service provider for the North Carolina Education Lottery's online and instant ticket games," said GTECH President and CEO W. Bruce Turner. "In partnership with OGT, GTECH will offer the North Carolina Education Lottery a complete, end-to-end lottery solution, which is a testament to our unmatched experience in the lottery industry, our proven quality of services, and, most importantly, the integrity and security of our systems. "GTECH's fully-integrated solution will enable the Lottery to respond to market challenges with accelerated innovation, because we offer more robust reporting tools, a larger portfolio of games ready to market, and a unique set of devices and solutions for retail expansion, allowing the Lottery to effectively manage its growth in the years ahead," continued Mr. Turner. Under the terms of the seven-year agreement, GTECH will install the Company's Enterprise Series™ technology platform providing both online and instant ticket functionality, as well as 5,000 Altura® terminals initially. The Lottery has the option to grow the terminal base to up to 10,000 over time. The Company has also agreed to supply up to 1,000 Lottery Inside™ retail point-of-sale (POS) solutions which will allow the Lottery to expand its distribution channels by embedding lottery functionality in existing retailer POS hardware. GTECH will also install and maintain 800 ITVMs, and a state-of-the-art, IP wireless communications network, providing the most secure and reliable data connection between the host computer and lottery retailers. In addition, GTECH and OGT will work together to create, produce, and deliver instant tickets. "Executing these tickets from concept to game production is the expertise of OGT, and that expertise will be supported by GTECH's skill in efficient warehousing, distributing, marketing, and selling of the tickets once they are on the market," concluded Mr. Turner.
GTECH will provide ongoing services to the Lottery including maintenance of the central system, lottery terminals, ITVMs, and communications network; instant games management, warehousing, and distribution; retailer training; marketing support; hotline management; and field service. With respect to its agreement with the Lottery, GTECH expects to generate approximately $225 million to $250 million in revenue over the seven-year contract term. About GTECH SOURCE: GTECH Holdings Corporation media
release. Red Ball Bonus Increases Prizes for Players WEST VIRGINIA, USA (January 31, 2006) -- The Red Ball has bounced back into the West Virginia Lottery's Daily3 and Daily4 games. Lottery Director John Musgrave said the popular promotion is part of a year of activity planned to help players celebrate the Lottery's 20th anniversary.
He said the bonus drawing guarantees that in one out of six drawings, prizes won in the daily game drawings will be increased by 20 percent. Here's how it works. From Feb. 5 through April 1, six balls will be placed in an extra nightly drawing machine. One of them will be red. Five of them will be white. If a white ball is drawn, it will be discarded, increasing the odds of the red ball coming up during the next drawing. When the red ball is drawn, Musgrave said all Daily3 and Daily4 prizes won that night would automatically increase 20 percent, "a percent for every year the Lottery has been in business." Musgrave noted that a drawing designed to increase Cash25 prizes would be announced this summer and another Red Ball promotion is planned for Daily3 and Daily4 players next fall. SOURCE: West Virginia Lottery. Kentucky Lottery Corporation Tops Nine Billion Dollars in Sales LOUISVILLE, Kentucky, USA (January 30, 2006) -- During Friday’s meeting of the Kentucky Lottery Corporation’s (KLC’s) Board of Directors, it was announced the corporation had surpassed $9,000,000,000 in sales since inception. “With only a few exceptions, our sales have steadily climbed during each of the nearly 17 years we’ve been selling tickets,” said KLC President and CEO Arch Gleason. “This clearly shows our players enjoy our products, and that in light of increasing competition for discretionary income and a fluctuating economy, we’ve been able to keep our corporation on the right track.” KLC sales first started in April 1989. Of the $9 billion in tickets sold since then, the biggest share of the money - 59.8% - has been returned to players in the form of prizes. This means lottery winnings have plugged $5.38 billion into our economy. The Commonwealth has earned $2.38 billion (26.4%) of the overall sales, while $553.3 million (6.1%) has been paid in retailer commissions and $692.3 million (7.7%) used for marketing and operating expenses.
SALES FOR THE FIRST HALF OF THE FISCAL YEAR ARE SOLID Sales for the first six months of FY 06 (July ’05 through December ’05) were $365.7 million, which was $17.3 million (5%) more than the same period in the previous fiscal year and $14.5 million (4.1%) higher than projected. This led to the second-highest sales quarter in KLC history with $195.9 million in sales. This was driven in large part due to the $340 million Powerball jackpot run in October, when online sales alone rose $15.2 million (62.8%) higher than projected. The KLC’s Sr. Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Howard Kline tempered the good news with caution as to how the rest of the year may develop. “We’ve seen a softening of sales in the first three weeks of January, which isn’t unheard of, but it could be a barometer of how sales might progress,” said Kline. “Higher gas prices and higher home heating bills appear to be eating into the discretionary income of Kentucky residents, and this might impact our sales.” As a result, the board decided to leave the initial projection of $717 million in sales for the year intact. However, the board did approve an additional $10 million dividend transfer to the scholarship and grant programs funded by the KLC in light of increased sales. This means the corporation is now expected to turn over $177.8 million in revenue to the literacy, scholarship and grant programs during FY ’06. This is a 12.4% increase over the last fiscal year. OTHER BOARD ACTION
In other business, the board approved:
NEXT KENTUCKY LOTTERY BOARD MEETING SET The next meeting of the KLC Board of Directors will be March 24th. The meeting will begin at 9:30 a.m. ET, and will be held at KLC headquarters at 1011 West Main Street, Louisville. Committee meetings will begin at 8:30 a.m. ET SOURCE: Kentucky Lottery media release. OGT Brings America’s Favorite Icon -- John Wayne® -- to the Lottery Industry
SAN ANTONIO, Texas, USA (January 26, 2006) -- Oberthur Gaming Technologies (OGT) has secured for Lotteries worldwide exclusive rights to one of the greatest American icons of all time, John Wayne. In the spirit of John Wayne’s generous nature, OGT and Wayne Enterprises will donate a portion of the licensing fee to either the John Wayne Cancer Foundation (JWCF) or a veteran’s organization of the Lottery’s choice. In addition, Lotteries can use John Wayne’s name, likeness, and nickname “The Duke” on tickets, point of sale, and in its advertising.
Throughout his career, John Wayne appeared in over 175 movies and has always been listed on the Top Ten List of the Harris Poll for America’s Favorite Movie Stars. With an amazing 50 year career, his lifetime accomplishments included numerous awards and honors such as an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars highest award - The National Americanism Gold Medal. Posthumously, John Wayne was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Today, John Wayne has been immortalized through a USA commemorative stamp, countless statues, an Army RAH-66 Helicopter, and an airport. He still holds the record for most leading roles by an actor. OGT brings to the industry a wide range of images and action shots of John Wayne, so Lotteries can create western, patriotic, or a combination of themes to grace their games and support materials. The most recent Q Scores and Harris Poll both rank John Wayne #3 in popularity among his peers, and he is consistently ranked in the Top 5 of Greatest Movie Stars of all time by publications such as Premiere Magazine and Entertainment Weekly. “The magnitude of John Wayne’s popularity still heavily prevails,” said Carla Schaefer, V.P. of New Business Development at OGT. “As an American legend, John Wayne continues to generate phenomenal public interest. With both broad and international appeal, we can only expect this property to perform as well as this great performer.”
About Oberthur Gaming Technologies
(www.oberthurgt.com) About Wayne
Enterprises SOURCE: Lyse Trudel, Communications Officer, Oberthur Gaming Technologies, (+1-514) 254-3600, ext. 101, Email: lyse.trudel@mtl.oberthurgt.com. For information:Vicki Smith, Sales Support Specialist, Liz Johnson, New Business Coordinator, Oberthur Gaming Technologies, (+1-210) 509-9999 ext. 236 or (+1-210) 509-9999 ext. 119. Kansas Lottery Launches “Golf Giveaway” Ticket to Celebrate U.S. Senior Open HUTCHINSON, Kansas, USA (January 27, 2006) -- As part of the Kansas Lottery’s commitment to develop Kansas-themed tickets and promote Kansas business and tourism, the Lottery today launched its new “Golf Giveaway” instant ticket during a news conference at Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson.
The ticket ties into the 27th U.S. Senior Open Championship being played at Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson July 6-9. Prairie Dunes Country Club is pictured on the front of the “Golf Giveaway” ticket, along with the “KANSAS, as big as you think” state tagline, and the grand prizes are trips to the U.S. Senior Open Championship. “The 2006 U.S. Senior Open and the Kansas Lottery are both focused on creating economic development and tourism opportunities within the state of Kansas so naturally, we are very excited to assist with that initiative,” said Greg Conrad, Championship Director of the 2006 U.S. Senior Open. The “Golf Giveaway” ticket, which went on sale Jan. 19, is the Lottery’s latest in a series of tickets developed through a strategic alliance with the Kansas Department of Commerce and partnerships with Kansas business and tourism. The tickets offer lottery players a chance to win Kansas-themed grand prizes in second-chance drawings. “These Kansas-themed tickets are very popular with our players,” said Lottery Marketing Director Colleen O’Neil. “They want to win prizes with a Kansas connection, and one of the biggest events in Kansas this year is certainly the U.S. Senior Open Championship.” The 25 grand prizes in the “Golf Giveaway” second-chance drawing include two tickets for the U.S. Senior Open Championship, food and other amenities at the Kansas Lottery Hospitality Villa at Prairie Dunes Country Club, four days and three nights lodging at the Grand Prairie Hotel and Convention Center, $500 credit in the Prairie Dunes Country Club Merchandise Pavilion, $500 cash, and mandatory income withholding taxes on the prizes. The value of each grand prize is approximately $7,000.
“The Lottery has ensured that the 25 ‘Golf Giveaway’ winners and their guests will be treated to something very special at the 2006 U.S. Senior Open and we are pleased that we can help create this opportunity,” said Conrad. Anticipated players at the U.S. Senior Open include Tom Watson, Ben Crenshaw, Jay Haas, Hale Irwin, Tom Kite, Greg Norman, Gary Player, Craig Stadler, Curtis Strange and Fuzzy Zoeller to name a few. The U.S. Senior Open is expected to be the largest international event ever held in Kansas, with an anticipated 125,000 to 150,000 golf fans drawn to Hutchinson and the state of Kansas for the event. “It isn’t every day that the legends of golf come to Kansas,” said O’Neil. “The Kansas Lottery is proud to show its support of this exciting event and to give some of our players a chance to see it for themselves.” SOURCE: Kansas Lottery. Maryland Lottery Introduces Multi-Match; New Lotto-style Game Replaces Classic Lotto BALTIMORE, Maryland, USA (January 30, 2006) -- On February 1, 2006, the Maryland Lottery’s final Lotto drawing will be held. The Classic Lotto game, which ran for more than 23 years, is being replaced by Multi-Match, a new $2 Lotto-style game that gives players a new play style and more chances to win. Tickets for Multi-Match go on sale February 2, 2006, and the game’s first drawing will be held February 4, 2006. If Lotto’s final jackpot is not hit, it will roll into the new game.
The Multi-Match game offers players three lines of six numbers each between 1 and 43. Players can match numbers from any of the three lines, giving them more opportunities to win. The overall odds of winning a prize are 1 in 8.5. The minimum prize starts at $2. “Lotto has had a good run, but sales numbers have continued to decline, telling us it was time for a change,” said Lottery Director Buddy Roogow. “Multi-Match features all the things our players want – better odds, more prizes, and a more interesting way to play.” If no one matches all six numbers on Wednesday night, the first Multi-Match jackpot on Saturday will be $1.2 million. If the final Lotto jackpot is hit, Multi-Match will have an initial jackpot of $500,000 and will increase by $50,000 every drawing until there is a jackpot winner. Multi-Match drawings will be held at the same time as Lotto, on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 11:07 p.m. For more information, visit www.mdlottery.com SOURCE: The Maryland Lottery. MONTREAL, Quebec, Canada (January 31, 2006) -- Atlantic Lottery Corporation (“ALC”) has implemented OGT’s GOLDS (Global Operations and Lottery Distribution System) to support ALC’s Corporate Inventory Management Initiative. GOLDS is a user friendly and flexible modular system that runs on PC-based software and manages all functions of Telemarketing, Ordering, Warehousing and Distribution, in a secure environment and in an efficient and timely manner. The modules that are connected to the current ALC systems manage the marketing, promotional and lottery terminal supplies, as well as all other physical inventory in the Lottery’s warehouses. “ALC's initiative was aimed at controlling our corporate inventory and managing the consolidated movement of products to the retail market from two distribution centers located in Atlantic Canada. After an evaluation of different systems, we identified OGT's GOLDS as the most comprehensive solution to help us complete our initiative,” said Carmen McAffee, Vice-President Retail Gaming of ALC. ALC’s sales network includes approximately 6,500 retailers, two warehouses and two repair depots, and currently manages over 2,500 different products (from terminal parts to POS supplies and instant tickets). ALC redefined its approach to customer order fulfillment and now merges instant ticket orders with lottery supply items directly from its own distribution centers. By consolidating total customer order fulfillment ‘in-house’, ALC has generated substantial annual savings on previous third party storage/handling expense. Since GOLDS is very flexible and can support various business models with minimal development costs, ALC has integrated other related items such as POS, merchandise pieces, etc. to the shipments of instant tickets to retailers resulting in further cost savings.
“Utilizing the numerous features included in the GOLDS solution, we can manage our inventory through applying the principles of supply chain management, and achieve the objectives of increasing turnover of ALC’s full lottery products and realize increased operational efficiencies,” declared Jim Radford, Distribution Manager for ALC. According to Darlene Rand, Manager of Inside Sales of ALC, and Gilles Coté, Analyst at Lottery Support Services, the Telemarketing and Ordering solution provided by OGT is a very flexible tool to manage retailer supply ordering requirements via the telephone. About Oberthur Gaming
Technologies (www.oberthurgt.com) SOURCE: Lyse Trudel, Communications Officer, Oberthur Gaming Technologies, (+1-514) 254-3600, ext. 101, Email: lyse.trudel@mtl.oberthurgt.com. For information: Michel Provencher, Logistics Director, Oberthur Gaming Technologies, (+1-514) 254-3600, ext. 120, Email: michel.provencher@mtl.oberthurgt.com. Veikkaus Involved in the Olympics Excitement in Many Ways VEIKKAUS, Finland (January 30, 2005) -- Over a third of Finns say sports are at least fairly important for them. The Olympic Winter Games in Torino will be heard and seen widely in Finnish homes and workplaces right from the opening day on 10 February. The thrill of following how Finns will do in the games will be nicely spiced up by betting. Four years ago Finns spent over EUR 5.6 million on betting on the Olympics in Salt Lake City. The most popular betting objects were ice hockey, cross-country skiing, biathlon, and ski jumping.
The favourite events and betting objects will be well represented on our betting lists even during the forthcoming Olympics. Veikkaus' objective is to attract more customers who play with small stakes and to gain extra excitement during the games. During the Torino Olympics the core target group will be the friends of winter sports to whom we offer simple betting objects that are nice and easy to try, such as "What is the best rank a Finn will attain?", or "Which of these two competitors will win?". For the more active customers, we will offer, e.g., Live Betting, in which we will introduce biathlon as a new object. We believe biathlon is well suited for real-time gaming in view of its versatile nature. Strong supporter Veikkaus is also involved in the Olympics excitement as a strong supporter of sports. We are currently the major partner in cooperation of the Finnish Olympic Committee for a third four-year period in a row. As a national gaming organization we also work to guarantee that the different sectors of sports and recreational sports have the necessary resources for operating in Finland. Nearly EUR 90 million of Veikkaus funds are allocated to sports and recreational sports each year, i.e. 98 percent of the total funds distributed to sports by the Ministry of Education. The funds are used to support, e.g., the development and activities of the different sports organisations, to maintain and build sports facilities, as well as to secure sports education. SOURCE: Veikkaus' eNews distributed by Veikkaus Communications. Louisiana Lottery’s New Orleans Regional Office to Reopen on Feb. 3. LOUISIANA, USA (February 1, 2006) -- The Louisiana Lottery Corporation announced today that it will reopen its New Orleans regional office, located in the Clearview Palms Shopping Center in Metairie, on Feb. 3, about five months after Hurricane Katrina destroyed it. Although the complex did not flood, extensive roof damage and subsequent rain caused irreparable damage to the entire contents of the 4,000-square-foot office. It was completely gutted and rebuilt.
We are still analyzing how best to phase in all of our operations there, but the first function resumed will be prize payment," said Kip Shuford, senior vice president, sales and marketing. During the time the office was closed, greater New Orleans residents who won more than $600 were having to decide whether to make a trip to Baton Rouge to claim their prize or hold out to see if the office would reopen before the claim deadline for their particular prize. Lottery retailers are allowed to cash winning up to $600, but larger prizes must be claimed at a Lottery regional office. Jackpot prizes and Powerball prizes over $510,00 must be claimed at Lottery headquarters in Baton Rouge. "Many of our New Orleans customer service representatives and regional staff still do not have homes to go back to and may continue to service our retailers from the Baton Rouge location," said Shuford. "Our goal is to deliver to our New Orleans area players and retailers all the Lottery service and support they need." SOURCE: Louisiana Lottery. ALPHARETTA, Georgia, USA (February 2, 2006) -- Membership to the Michigan Lottery’s innovative Internet-based “Player City VIP Club,” developed by MDI Entertainment, has reached almost 80,000 in just its first six months, nearly doubling the population. The “Player VIP Club” model includes a value-added entertainment infrastructure, adding benefits designed to continually delight lottery consumers and turn them into life-long inhabitants of the world of lottery play. Patterned after rewards programs that offer consumers value in exchange for actual purchases, the MDI program was designed for situations in which lotteries are not able to track purchases but are interested in providing some means of building long-term lottery player loyalty and satisfaction. "This feature exclusive to MDI adds another level of entertainment for lottery players and we’ve received rave reviews from customers who have participated,” said Steve Saferin, MDI president. “As the VIP Club continues to grow in popularity, we encourage all lotteries to visit the Michigan site and let MDI help them add this component to their own websites.”
At Michigan’s PLAYER CITY™ Players’ Club website, members earn “P.C. Points” for participating in various activities at the website. The most generous rewards are tied to submitting entries into second chance drawings, as those are indirectly tied to the member’s lottery ticket purchase behavior. But rewards can also be earned for taking part in polls and surveys, participating in interactive “community projects”, signing up for e-mail subscriptions, playing games and completing lottery game tutorials. Rewards for points earned come in the form of status within the club and actual redeemable value. Members with the most points earn places in the PLAYER CITY HALL OF FAME with special gift incentives ties to being among the points leaders. Members can redeem points for entries into special “Member Only” contests and to receive “Member Only” e-coupons for Lottery products. Within the next month members will also be able to use points to play games located within the club environment, for chances to earn more points. The site can be accessed at http://michigan.playercity.net. About Scientific
Games SOURCE: MDI Entertainment.
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