20 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • JULY/AUGUST 2026 The next generation of players have more games of chance options than ever. How will lottery gaming continue to innovate and differentiate from commercial offerings/games/ products to support the long-term success of the lottery? Moderator: Sarah Taylor, Executive Director, Hoosier Lottery and Chair of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Committee for the World Lottery Association Panelists Mike Cardell, Senior Vice President, Americas Systems, Scientific Games Michelle Carney, Vice President Global Marketing, Brightstar Lottery Lester Elder, Executive Director, Missouri Lottery Julin Shaw, Senior Director, Business Development, DraftKings Rich Wheeler, Chief Corporate Relations Officer, Intralot Inc. The lottery industry has always evolved in response to competition, technology, and consumer behavior. What feels different today is the pace and breadth of that change. The next generation of players is growing up with near-limitless entertainment options, instant gratification, frictionless payments, and digital discovery as second nature. Against that backdrop, lottery is being asked a harder question than ever before: not simply how to modernize, but how to do so while preserving the trust, integrity, and public-benefit mission that define the category. That question framed a wide-ranging panel moderated by Sarah Taylor, Executive Director of the Hoosier Lottery and Chair of the World Lottery Association’s Corporate Social Responsibility Committee. Joined by leaders from lottery, suppliers, and commercial gaming, the discussion explored how lottery gaming might evolve over the next five years — across player journeys, product innovation, competition, responsible gaming, and emerging technologies. What emerged was not a call to abandon lottery’s roots, but a clear consensus that the industry must modernize around those roots, meeting consumers where they are while reinforcing what makes lottery fundamentally different and special. From Player Journey to Consumer Journey Lottery can’t just optimize what happens after someone arrives. It has to get better at being found, and at feeling effortless once it is. Mike Cardell of Scientific Games described a fundamental shift in how consumers interact with brands and products. “The player journey isn’t linear anymore — it’s a web,” he said. “People enter from different places, on different devices, with different expectations. Our job is to make the experience consistent wherever they start, and seamless as they move between channels.” That consistency, Cardell emphasized, extends beyond the games themselves. Payments, portfolio structure, and engagement moments all need to work together. “You have to meet people where they want to play, when they want to play, and how they want to play; and make sure the entire experience is stitched together seamlessly.” Julin Shaw of DraftKings suggested that the industry may need to widen its frame even further. Rather than focusing exclusively on the “lottery player journey,” she encouraged that lotteries should instead be thinking of the broader consumer journey. “People are already on digital pathways every day — searching, scrolling, comparing, buying,” Shaw said. “We leveraged sophisticated tools for what happens once players reach our app or website. Now we have to get better at the earlier step: discovery. How do we find them where they already are — and give them a simple bridge into lottery?” That shift in perspective matters, she added, because attention is now the scarcest commodity. If lottery relies solely on players seeking it out, it risks falling behind brands that insert themselves naturally into consumers’ existing digital habits. Rich Wheeler of Intralot noted that many lotteries are already moving in this direction, particularly by taking retail data more seriously. “We’re seeing more lotteries invest in understanding the retail player, not just the iLottery player,” he said. Loyalty programs have become more sophisticated, digital wallets are changing expectations, and analytics now allow operators to see where players disengage — and why. PANEL DISCUSSION This article is based on a panel discussion held at PGRI Lottery Expo Nashville on November 6 Left to right: Sarah Taylor, Michelle Carney, Mike Cardell, Julin Shaw, Rich Wheeler and Lester Elder New Directions: How might Lottery Gaming change over the next five years? Continued on page 24
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTg4MTM=