In the COVID-19 world, online sales of New Hampshire lottery tickets and interest in horse racing has soared. The NH Lottery is throwing gas on that fire with a coming iLottery expansion.
The lottery just announced a new contract with Instant Win Gaming, a company that provides virtual lottery games to jurisdictions around the world. It could add even more variety to an already successful product.
What IWG brings to the table in an iLottery expansion
According to a news release, IWG currently offers over 300 games in several countries. It has been in the iLottery business for 15 years and manages eight separate lotteries in North America. This is the second state lottery for IWG, with the other being Michigan.
New Hampshire launched its online lottery product in September 2018. The new relationship with IWG will allow the offerings to significantly expand.
The deal gives the NH Lottery access to IWG’s catalog of games. In addition, it’s possible that IWG could create some games just for the Granite State.
The release doesn’t specify which IWG games the NH Lottery will add to its menu. It also doesn’t note how quickly the new offerings will be available.
The deal with IWG represents an investment in the vertical by the NH Lottery, however. The facts of the situation not only show the value of iLotteries to states like NH but also how the NH Lottery’s current investment is already paying off.
NH’s iLottery trending up at a great time
As other lotteries have seen downturns due to the coronavirus pandemic, NH’s iLottery has actually made out like a bandit. That’s in relative terms, however.
The NH Lottery says its iLottery sales are up 100% year-over-year. It boasts that over 67,000 players have registered accounts on its platform.
While the lottery hasn’t shared the exact figures on those sales or how many of those 67,000 registrants started playing after the virus broke out, it’s a good assumption that the current situation makes the iLottery more appealing.
Not only does the iLottery offer the convenience of playing anywhere in the state but the safety of doing so without human contact, as well. States without an iLottery, like Maryland, have had to adjust procedures to keep physical games running.
For those reasons, many New Hampshirites who can no longer access brick-and-mortar gambling may have gravitated to the iLottery. The greatest indicator of that success is in looking at how in-person lottery products fare across the country right now.
As the NH iLottery surges, physical lotteries struggle
One of the greatest indicators of how physical lotteries fare right now is a set of policy changes for the popular multistate games Mega Millions and Powerball. The changes are significant.
The Multistate Lottery Corp. drastically cut the value of initial jackpots and roll increases for both games. For example, initial jackpots for Powerball are now worth $20 million, a fifth of what they were previously.
The reason behind these changes is to keep the games fiscally solvent amid a drastic reduction in ticket sales. Although it’s difficult to ascertain just how much less that reduction would be if electronic sales for these games were possible, it’s difficult to imagine that wouldn’t have some positive effect.
The NH Lottery has kept its iLottery product strong through the pandemic. Through this new partnership with IWG, it could become even more of a cash cow for the Granite State.
