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New Virginia Lottery Game Features Bingo Fun With Instant
Prizes
RICHMOND, Virginia, USA (February 5,
2007) -- For the first time in its history, the
Virginia Lottery is offering a $2
terminal-printed ticket. No scratching – no play slips - no waiting for a
drawing. And with a top prize of $10,000, Fast Play Bingo is expected to be a
hit with players.
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“This game is something
completely new for us,” said Virginia Lottery Executive Director
Sheila Hill-Christian.
“It is one of several exciting initiatives we are rolling out to help
raise money for Virginia’s K-12 public schools.”
Fast Play Bingo is played much like
the familiar bingo game. A bingo card is printed for the player at the
terminal. That card will contain both the player’s and the caller’s
numbers. The player will therefore know immediately if the card is a winner.
The chances of winning the top prize
of $10,000 are 1 in 82,908. Other prizes include “four
corners,” which wins $50 and “all in a line,” which
wins $8. In addition, two of the caller’s numbers will have stars next to
them. If those two numbers match, the ticket wins $4. The chances of that
happening are 1 in 10.
Fast Play Bingo tickets go on sale
beginning February 4, 2007 at Virginia Lottery retailers across the
Commonwealth.
SOURCE: Virginia Lottery.
Josef Tupý Celebrates 35 Years In The Betting And Lottery
Industry
Josef Tupý |
PRAGUE, Czech Republic (February 1,
2007) -- Early February 2007 saw the celebration of a remarkable job
anniversary of Ing. Josef Tupý, the first Deputy Director General and
the Director of the Autonomous Implementation and Conversion Project Management
Department at SAZKA, a.s. He joined SAZKA as
of 1 February 1972, thus working for the biggest lottery company in the Czech
Republic for exactly 35 years!
Josef Tupý initially worked
as Evaluating and Sorting Machine Technician, and later became Head of
company’s Technical and Operational Section. He led the Games and Betting
Division for several years. In 2005, he established the Autonomous
Implementation and Conversion Project Management Department which he also leads
today.
Josef Tupý has participated
in all transformations that the betting and lottery industry in the Czech
Republic has gone through over the last 35 years – from the off-line
system and one-off sorting machines, through the advent of the on-line system,
up to switching to the ES Enterprise Series central system and the
state-of-the-art Altura terminals. He participated in the birth and expansion
of company’s non-lottery business, which includes the prepaid mobile phone
top-up service; selling tickets for sporting, cultural and other events; and
payments by paying-in slips, invoice and insurance premium payments.
In 1972, when Josef Tupý
joined the company, it only operated the Sportka and Mates number lotteries and
the Sazka betting game. In 2007, SAZKA, a.s., operates a total of 35 betting
and lottery games. In addition to number lotteries, it also offers instant
lotteries (from 1989), odds betting (1996) or the central lottery system with
interactive video lottery terminals – the StarPort product (2003).
Revenues from betting and lottery activities rose from CZK 1.2 billion to CZK
7.9 billion for that period while the number of operated terminals increased
from 2,200 units to the current more than 7,000 units after switching to the
on-line system.
Josef Tupý is married and has
two children. His greatest hobbies include sports, notably soccer, tennis,
skiing and cycling.
PhDr. Zdeněk Zikmund
SAZKA, a.s. Press Spokesperson, Tel.: 266 12 92 22, Fax: 266 12 26 67, I-net:
http://www.sazka.cz, E-mail:
zikmund@sazka.cz
Raffle Season's Coming! California Lottery Introduces Million Dollar
Raffle - Best Odds Ever at a Million Bucks!
SACRAMENTO, California, USA (January
29, 2007) -- The California Lottery is
proud to announce the introduction of an exciting new game, the Million Dollar
Raffle! With the best odds of winning a million bucks ever offered by a
California Lottery game, only a limited number of Raffle tickets will be
available and only for a short time. Raffle sales start Monday, February 5,
2007.
“While the Million Dollar
Raffle is new to the Lottery, it’s a game that everyone is familiar
with,” said Joan Borucki,
Acting Director of the California Lottery. “The Million Dollar Raffle
offers the best odds to win a million bucks ever offered by the California
Lottery and tickets are available only for a limited time. It’s almost
Raffle Season and your best chance to win $1 million won’t be around
forever!”
The Million Dollar Raffle will make
up to ten lucky players millionaires. The Million Dollar Raffle is played just
like other “raffle” style games with a maximum of five million
unique seven digit raffle numbers available for sale at $5 per number. Numbers
will be sold in sequence and when all five million are gone, they’re gone.
A minimum of five Grand Prize winners of $1 million cash each will be drawn on
St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2007. But, as sales grow, the number of $1
million Grand Prizes grows too! If all five million raffle numbers are sold,
ten $1 million Grand Prizes will be awarded.
In addition to the Grand Prize
drawing on St. Patrick’s Day, there will be four preliminary draws for
ten, $10,000 cash prizes in each draw. After every preliminary draw, raffle
numbers, including winning ones, will remain eligible for all subsequent draws
as well as the Grand Prize drawing. The preliminary draws will be conducted on
February 17, February 24, March 3 and March 10, 2007. Buy your raffle tickets
early to participate in every draw and get five chances to win!
Sound too good to be true? It gets
better. For every $20 you spend on a ticket, the Lottery will give you another
raffle number free! That means that for every $20 raffle ticket you’ll
receive five raffle numbers.
Million Dollar Raffle tickets will
be available at all Lottery retailers. Tickets will be available for sale
between February 5 and March 17 or until all five million numbers are sold,
whichever comes first. On draw days, tickets must be purchased before 6:00 p.m.
to participate in that evening’s draw. Winning Raffle numbers will be
announced on television at approximately 6:58 p.m. on draw nights on local
Lottery stations (consult local listings). Winning numbers will also be
available at Lottery retailers and on the Lottery’s website,
www.calottery.com. Prizes will be paid
at cash value (no annuitized prizes) and winning tickets must be claimed within
180 days of the draw in which the prize was won. Odds of winning a $1 million
Grand Prize if all five million Raffle numbers are sold are 1 in 500,000.
SOURCE: California Lottery press
release.
Lottery Offers Hummer H2 in New Pick 3 Raffle Promotion
MISSOURI, USA (January 26, 2007) --
One lucky Pick 3 player will get the chance to cruise around in a 2007
Hummer® H2 this spring with the Missouri Lottery’s new "Pick 3
Bonus Bucks Raffle" promotion, which starts Feb. 1 and ends March 1. In
addition to the chance to win the top-prize Hummer® H2, players will also
be able to win one of 40 $1,000 cash prizes.
"We think Pick 3 players will be
excited to get a chance to win a Hummer®," said Jennifer Kempker,
promotions manager for the Missouri Lottery. "The 40 $1,000 cash prizes are
also very appealing."
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The grand-prize winner will have the
option to take the vehicle or the cash value of the Hummer H2, which is
$60,000, taxes paid.
Starting Feb. 1, a numbered raffle
ticket will follow every $3 or greater Pick 3 single-ticket purchase for that
day’s draw. Once a week during the four-week promotion, a drawing will be
held with the raffle numbers issued that week. In each drawing, the Lottery
will award 10 prizes of $1,000 cash. At the final drawing on March 2, one entry
will be drawn from among all the entries received for the promotion.
"Players need to hang on to their
raffle tickets since they are good for the weekly drawing and also for the
grand-prize drawing," said Kempker. "If they win, they will need to provide the
raffle ticket to us to claim their prize."
Raffle winning numbers will be
available on the Missouri Lottery’s Web site, posted at retail locations
and distributed to the media through news releases.
For complete information on drawing
dates, winning raffle numbers and promotion rules, go to
www.Molottery.com.
SOURCE: Missouri Lottery press
release.
Third-Party Develops New S2s Protocol Tool Kit; S2SConnect Now
Available
LAS VEGAS, Nevada, USA (February 5,
2007) – Since its announcement last year to allow and encourage
independent third-party development of protocol tool kits, companies have been
progressing steadily on test suites for Gaming Standards Association protocols.
Now GSA is proud to announce the release of a tool kit for its System-to-System
(S2S) protocol.
Illinois-based technology company
Digital Dynamics has developed and released S2SConnect, which enables gaming
manufacturers to quickly add S2S to their gaming products. S2SConnect contains
a number of value-add features, including synchronous and asynchronous support,
client and host support, automatic communication retries, message validation, a
pluggable network transport layer and type safety.
GSA President Peter De Raedt said,
“Our goal is to encourage third-party companies to develop tool kits
for our protocols to drive the speed of implementation. We are very pleased
that Digital Dynamics answered that call. We believe that the industry will be
excited about their S2SConnect tool.”
Digital Dynamics has been working
with GSA for several years towards gaming protocols standardization. More
information about the new S2SConnect tool kit is available on the
company’s website, www.digdyn.com.
Tool kits are development suites
that accompany standards and allow game manufacturers to implement and test the
standard on their equipment. Casino operators can use the tool kits to improve
their operational efficiency.
GSA’s S2S protocol provides the
foundation for multi-system management of casino floors, allowing player
tracking, ticket-in-ticket-out (TITO) and accounting systems from multiple
manufacturers to co-exist on a single casino floor.
About the Gaming Standards
Association (GSA):
The Gaming Standards Association
(GSA) is an international trade association that creates benefits for gaming
manufacturers, suppliers, operators and regulators. We facilitate the
identification, definition, development, promotion, and implementation of open
standards to enable innovation, education, and communication for the benefit of
the entire industry. Since its incorporation on May 6, 1998, GSA
has members representing a wide cross section of the global gaming industry.
For more information, visit
www.gamingstandards.com.
SOURCE: Gaming Standards Association
media release distributed by Steinbeck Communications.
CONTACT: Paul
Speirs, P: 702-413-4278, F: 702-233-3492, E:
paulspeirs@cox.net.
Illinois Lottery Gives Bears Fans Something to Cheer About on St.
Patrick’s Day
CHICAGO, Illinois, USA (February 5,
2007) -- Even though the Chicago Bears didn’t win the Super Bowl, the
residents of Illinois still have something good to cheer about. That’s
because, today, the Illinois Lottery is
releasing a limited run of only 500,000 tickets for its “St.
Patrick’s Day Millionaire Raffle.” Featuring the best odds of
becoming a millionaire for any Illinois Lottery game, “Millionaire
Raffle” will create four new millionaires on St. Patrick’s Day,
while five more players will walk away with $100,000.
The “St. Patrick’s Day
Millionaire Raffle” offers the best odds of becoming a millionaire for
of any Illinois Lottery game and tickets are expected to sell quickly. When the
Florida Lottery held a similar raffle, 250,000 tickets were sold in the first
day—half of the total tickets available for sale in Illinois. That’s
why the Illinois Lottery will update http://www.illinoislottery.com
multiple times each day to let players know how many tickets remain.
In total, the raffle will create 509
winners: four win $1 million, five win $100,000 and 500 will win $1,000. The
odds of winning $1 million are one in 125,000, the best of any Lottery game,
and one in 982 raffle players will win a prize of $1000 or more.
“With Super Bowl fever
winding down, the Illinois Lottery is giving Illinoisans something new to look
forward to,” said Illinois Lottery Superintendent
Carolyn Adams. “This year,
anyone can have the luck of the Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.”
Tickets cost $20 and will be sold in
sequential order at all Lottery retailers. A computerized drawing on St.
Patrick’s Day (March 17) will randomly select the 509 winners. Winning
raffle numbers will be available on http://www.illinoislottery.com after
the drawing.
For more information on the Illinois
Lottery please visit our Web site at http://www.illinoislottery.com.
CONTACT: Mia Sissac, (312) 255-3073
(office), (312) 636-6303 (cell) or Brigitte Cross, (312) 255-3045 (office),
(773) 339-1176 (cell)
SOURCE: Illinois Lottery media
release.
New Mobile Lottery Services
Camelot And Orange To
Develop New Range Of Mobile Lottery Services
Partnership will develop new
lottery services across emerging interactive platforms – putting the
lottery in the palm of players’ hands
LONDON, UK (February 4, 2007) --
Camelot and communications company Orange
have signed a deal to develop a new range of lottery games and services for
National Lottery players to access
through the next generation of mobile devices and other emerging interactive
platforms.
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The alliance is the latest in a
series of strategic partnerships which Camelot has forged as it prepares its
bid for the third lottery license. It forms part of Camelot’s plans to
develop the lottery of the future – making it convenient and safe for UK
players to access an expanding range of National Lottery services as technology
evolves.
Under the deal Camelot and Orange
will work together to launch lottery games specifically for mobile devices
– should the lottery operator be successful in its bid for the new 10-year
license.
The new agreement will also see
Camelot and Orange work together to build a transactional mobile Internet
lottery site for Orange World, the cross-platform branded content portal. The
two companies will jointly develop age verification and payment services to
make it easy and safe for Orange customers over the age of 16 to register and
play National Lottery games through their mobile communications devices.
Camelot already operates the most
successful interactive lottery in the world, with over 2.1 million registered
players, and raising more than £500,000 for the Good Causes every week.
Camelot currently offers players the ability to access The National
Lottery® through the internet, interactive TV and mobile phones. It was the
first organization to receive accreditation for all three of these services
from GamCare, the UK’s centre for information, advice and help on
gambling.
Dianne Thompson, Camelot Chief
Executive, said: “The UK National Lottery is already the most
successful interactive lottery in the world – but we are not resting on
our laurels. This is about developing an innovative lottery for the future. We
have done a lot of research to develop a vision for how the UK will look in
2019, and the lottery’s place within it, to ensure that we deliver for
players and the Good Causes.
“I’m pleased that
Orange and Camelot have been able to work so closely together and I hope that
we will have the opportunity to deliver an innovative range of games and
services – and a mobile future for UK National Lottery
players.”
Bernard Ghillebaert, CEO of Orange,
said: “We are working with Camelot to help develop a lottery of the
future – one that’s easy to access, safe and above all, fun. Orange
is one of the most powerful brands in the UK and with over 70% of UK adults
playing the National Lottery every week this partnership will deliver value to
everyone involved.”
All proposed games and services will
be subject to approval by the National
Lottery Commission.
Bids for the third license to
operate The National Lottery have to be submitted to the National Lottery
Commission by 9 February 2007. The successful bidder is due to be announced in
summer 2007, and the new license will commence in 2009. Camelot began work on
its bid in January 2005. It has created a dedicated division to work on the
third license, while the rest of the company continues with the vital work of
raising money for Good Causes.
Financial terms of the deal remain
commercially confidential.
For further information, please
contact Ben Rosier, Head of Media Relations, Camelot Press Office: 020 7632
5711 or The Orange Press Office on 0870 373 1500
SOURCE: Camelot.
OGT and Slingo® Extend Their Long-Standing Winning
Partnership
SAN ANTONIO, Texas, USA (February 8,
2007) -- The world’s most successful licensed game will continue its trend
with Oberthur Gaming Technologies
(“OGT”) and Slingo®, Inc. announcing the renewal of their
strong partnership. OGT ran its first Slingo® game in 2001 with instant
success. Seven years and 33 lottery organizations later, Slingo® has become
a base game for many of these lottery organizations.
Today, Slingo® has evolved with
many variations on the game play as well as the name. “Our team has
been busy developing Slingo® games for every consumer type,” said
Carla Schaefer, V.P. of New Business Development at OGT. “In 2007,
Lotteries will see an entirely new suite of Slingo® games to please not
only the loyal extended-play lovers, but those that love instant
gratification.”
Online, over 3.3 billion Slingo®
games have been played and one out of 20 Americans have played Slingo®.
Slingo® has found its way into casinos with over 350 Slingo® slot
machines in casinos today.
About Slingo, Inc.
Slingo, Inc. is a U.S. based company
which through visionary leadership and creative minds have effectively
developed and licensed the intellectual property for the Slingo brand games.
Over the past 10 years, as a leader in the growing “casual
games” space, Slingo, Inc has successfully licensed to partners
world-wide for use with: online game sites, downloadable games, instant lottery
tickets, casino slot machines, casino table games, broadcast and cable
television, mobile phone games, and other interactive mediums. Slingo Inc.'s
flagship game "Slingo" boasts over 3 billion games played because of its
irresistible game play and community. Slingo.com is now one of the leading
entertainment destinations for women on the internet. Some of Slingo, Inc.'s
partners are America Online, IGT, Funkitron, Oberthur Gaming Technologies, The
United States Playing Card Company and TVcompass. People can play Slingo and
other games, as well as join the social networking community by going to -
www.slingo.com.
For more information about Slingo,
Inc, visit www.slingo.com or email
Eric Lamendola at bizdev@slingo.com.
About Oberthur Gaming
Technologies (www.oberthurgt.com)
With more than 35 years of
lottery-specific expertise and over a century's experience in the security
printing industry, Oberthur Gaming Technologies is the world’s leader in
the printing of innovative instant lottery tickets. Comprehensive services
include strategic game planning and innovative conceptual design with
OGT’s Dream Team®, Cyber Games™ (interactive) as well as
state-of-the-art Global Operations and Lottery Distribution System (GOLDS). OGT
currently supplies a full range of high quality products and services to 100
clients in some 50 countries. The company has production units or sales offices
in Montreal, Canada; San Antonio, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania in the U.S.; Paris, France; Madrid, Spain; and Sydney,
Australia.
SOURCE: Lyse Trudel, Communications
Officer, Oberthur Gaming Technologies, (+1-514) 254-3600, ext. 101, Email:
lyse.trudel@mtl.oberthurgt.com.
For information: Vicki Sanchez, Sales Support Specialist, (+1-210) 509-9999
ext. 236 or Liz Johnson, New Business Coordinator, Oberthur Gaming
Technologies, (+1-210) 509-9999 ext. 119.
New Lottery Ticket Will Bust Myth of Jackpot
Fatigue
PHOENIX, Arizona, USA –
February 8, 2007 -- Relationship
Marketing Systems, LLC, a lottery products company in Phoenix, Arizona has
a patent-pending lottery ticket designed to increase sales of state lottery
jackpot games. According to Andy Amada, president of RMS,
“Believing in the myth of ’Jackpot Fatigue’ is holding state
lotteries back from generating a lot more sales and revitalizing their online
games.”
Sales of lottery jackpot games are
eroding and lottery professionals are becoming more concerned by the continuing
drop in player excitement. It is taking a longer and longer time for the
jackpots to build up, and even when the jackpots grow to astronomical heights,
such as the recent quarter of a billion dollar Powerball prize, there are no
long lines to be seen. The industry blames the lackluster sales and
player inaction on ‘Jackpot Fatigue’, meaning that the same
high jackpots are no longer exciting to the players, and claims that players
need to continue seeing higher and higher jackpots to maintain their
excitement. But, Amada disagrees, “The underlying problem is not
boredom, it’s frustration. It’s not ‘Jackpot Fatigue’
it’s ‘Losing Fatigue,’ and until the Lottery Industry recognizes
that problem and responds with new reasons to play, the players will continue
to drop out and sales of jackpot games will continue to fall.”
So, what will rebuild value and
bring players back to jackpot games? According to Amada, “The
same three things that attracted them in the first place – knowing that
there’s at least a chance that they might win something significant, the
perception that other players like them are winning something of value, and a
package of entertaining experiences that keeps them motivated to play all the
time.”
“Jackpot Fatigue is not the
problem, it is the result,” states Amada. “Players
aren’t fatigued or disinterested in the idea of winning $50 million, or
$25 million or $5 million. Even $1 million would change the average
person’s life forever for the better, and they know it. After years
and even decades of losing, players are beginning to realize that getting
anything back out of these jackpot games is pretty much a lost cause. So
they limit their playing to when the jackpots are higher when they feel
it’s ‘worth it’ to give playing another chance.”
“The recent success of
lower odds and smaller prize games like raffles are proof. Players are
paying $20 or twenty times the price of the traditional $1 ticket for a prize
that pales in comparison to the jackpot game prizes. Thus, the players
are still excited about and will support games that they believe give them at
least a small chance of winning, even if the payoff is only a million
bucks,” Amada added.
With all this in mind, RMS has
created a winning solution for both the players and the lottery – a
pooling ticket. “Pooling gives players exactly what they need to get
excited about playing again--an affordable way to get a lot more chances to
win. Players with access to office pools have been doing it since
lotteries began because they can see the common sense of getting dozens, even
hundreds more chances of winning,” Amada states. But, putting
together pools and collecting the funds has always been a hassle. State
lotteries, however, are in the position to take all of the hassles out of
pooling, making it simple, secure and available to everyone at all times
through a pooling ticket. Players would still be anonymous and they would
buy the pooling ticket just like they do any lottery ticket. All of the
work would be done by the lottery’s software. The software would
simply assign each player to a pool of ten tickets and when each pool fills up,
another pool would be started.
“The myth of Jackpot Fatigue
is completely misleading,” Amada adds. “Most players
don’t have to win hundreds of millions of dollars to see the value in
playing; they just need to believe they have a shot at winning something
significant. Believe me, even $1 million is significant to most people;
and knowing they have a lot more chances to win gives them that shot.”
RMS has branded their pooling ticket
PoolingPLUS™ because it is a combination ticket that includes both
traditional 100% owned tickets plus one or more pools of 10 tickets each.
Thus, a player who spends $6 could get three 100% owned tickets plus 3 pools of
10 tickets each giving them a total of 33 chances to win for only $6.
Amada states, “With PoolingPLUS™, the Lottery sells more tickets
at full price and the players get the best of both worlds - the opportunity to
‘win it all’ through their 100% owned tickets and now dozens or even
hundreds of chances to win through pools of tickets.”
“With PoolingPLUS™,
players will have a whole new way of playing any jackpot game,” Amada
states. Current players will play more and those players sitting on the
sidelines looking for a reason to return will get back into the game. The
PoolingPLUS™ ticket is simple and economical to install as it requires no
game changes and only a small software change.
RMS will soon be launching an
advanced information website for PoolingPLUS™ which will include market
research, sample promotions and a downloadable player survey for states to use
to with their own players. For more information call Relationship
Marketing Systems, LLC at (888) 777-5131, send an email to
info@poolingplus.com or visit:
www.poolingplus.com.
SOURCE: Relationship Marketing
Systems, LLC. CONTACT: Andy Amada, Phone: +1-888-777-5131, Email:
andy@poolingplus.com
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