William Hill has launched Planet Lottery in Australia, with Lottoland. Gambling Insider has the story:
William Hill Australia have today announced the launch of a new integrated lottery platform, which will allow its Australian customers to bet on some of the world’s biggest lottery contests.
The ‘William Hill Planet Lottery’ has been developed by William Hill in conjunction with Lottoland, following the agreement of a partnership deal between the two last month. Players will be able to bet on the results of lottery draws via their mobile or tablet, with all bets being guaranteed by Lottoland.
In a statement marking the launch, Oliver Scott, Head of Corporate Development at William Hill said: “William Hill is a leader in Australian betting, and we are thrilled to make this innovative and exciting new offering available to our punters, to bet low stakes for the chance to win goliath jackpots.”
This launch marks the first time that an Australian sportsbook operator has entered the lottery betting market. Lottoland has come under fire in the UK over recent months amidst concerns about whether operators should be allowed to take bets on the outcome of lottery draws.
In March 2017, the UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport launched an industry-wide consultation into whether such betting contravenes section 95 of the UK Gambling Act (2005). The consultation period for this closed in May with results due to be published later this year.
I expect this will intensify the competition for newsagent lottery outlets. Tatts cannot get this pass without response, as it has done with Lottoland since its launch.
I should think it would be quite easy to load William Hill/LottoLand Quick Picks onto the eziPass system. They could sell like phone recharge. Paying a prize would be simple, just like activating a gift card (re-scan the quickpick upon its return to the shop to generate a credit on the POS).
With the diminished taxation liabilities of LottoLand, there should be plenty of extra money to pay newsagents a more substantial commission. For a newsagent that currently has no Tatts, this could provide an avenue to sell lottery products avoiding the $50+ per week average shopfitting costs of Tatts, $44 per week scratchie fee, rent on the space occupied by Tatts furniture, plus additional franchise fees and percentage of sales fees. Many newsagents currently provide a cash-in service for Ladbrokes. I would expect other gambling opportunities to emerge over time.
Tatts will sit on their hands as they have done with Lottoland, i have little doubt we will not see an increase in support for Tatts agents.
Ezipass is certainly an ideal platform for this as it’s live and running uni many newsagencies with a proven backend for handling the cash.
We would strongly consider an Ezipass option for the sale of Planet Lottery products. We are currently a Tatts outlet, but the erosion of commissions is bringing Tatts closer to the “loss leader” category of magazines and newspapers. Commission to agents needs to jump up significantly for retailers to continue to sell.
We would have no trouble converting our customers to Planet Lottery. We could run both, but would want a much higher commission structure form Planet Lottery to entertain the thought as we would be launching the product to a new customer base that Lottoland currently does not reach. The Planet Lottery offer would need to have much higher commissions, bonuses for reaching sales targets and extremely setup costs would need to be absorbed by Planet Lottery.
Most of my customers do not see the lottery as gambling. Rightly or wrongly, it still has that “good causes” and “in it to win it” lottery feel of balls being picked from a hat.
Lottoland and especially William Hill will not have this facade. They are gambling.
I think many need to think twice before embracing betting shops.
You only have to see what has happened to the high street in towns in the UK to see what betting shops have done to local retail.
In terms of community connection, Tatts has next to none from what I can see whereas Lotterywest has it in buckets thanks to genuine community engagement, through government ownership and stewardship.
Recently tatts rep told me ,we have to choose if lotto land approach us. we can sell either tatts or lotto land. not both
Yes Ken I understand that is covered in the Tatts agreement. Makes sense.