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The North Carolina Education Lottery (NCEL) is upgrading its in-store scratch-off buying experience with new digital tools.
The state lottery teamed up with popular gaming technology company Scientific Games to modernize the face of in-store scratch-off purchases. The company's automation system will affect everything from the backend ticket supply chain to retailer reporting. Player experience will be affected, too.
Scientific Games is now rolling out 1,000 of its SCiQ units at retailers across the state.
What are the changes?
Using the SCiQ technology, scratch-off players operate a digital touch screen to order their tickets. Like a list of apps, the screen provides an offering of all of the state's 80 scratch-off games. Retailers can select these options through a feature display menu.
The automated technology will help retailers accurately report sales and reduce labor hours, according to a statement from Scientific Games. SCiQ also offers real-time inventory management data, analytics, performance reports, and security that can help control the supply chain, thereby boosting game sales.
Mark Michalko, North Carolina Education Lottery CEO and Executive Director, stated:
We're excited to bring SCiQ to our retailers throughout the state, providing them with a streamlined way to manage and sell NCEL Scratch-Off games in their stores. We anticipate that this technology system will improve inventory management for our retailers with store-level data analytics and improve sales to ultimately benefit education in our state.
NCEL Scratch-offs
NCEL Scratch-off games brought in more than $2.9 billion in retail sales in 2024, securing NCEL's place in the top 15 instant game lotteries, according to the 2024 World Almanac.
In total, about $1.09 billion of these proceeds went to education in the state in the 2023-2024 fiscal year, according to edNC. WRAL news reported that scratch-off games accounted for 54% of all lottery sales that year.
Currently, NCEL scratch-offs can be purchased in person and online.
What's the deal with Scientific Games?
Scientific Games provides games, technology, analytics, and services to more than 150 lotteries in 50 countries worldwide. The company invented the SCiQ system in 2020 to help retailers keep up with high lottery demands during COVID-19.
SCiQ is currently deployed at chain and independent retailers in more than a dozen U.S. markets, including Arizona, Illinois, Kansas, and Texas. SCiQ was recently launched for the first time in Europe. Michael Martin, VP of Retail Solutions for Scientific Games, said:
We commend the NCEL team for its clear vision on the need for technology that improves how Scratch-Off games are managed and sold in stores. Scientific Games is thrilled to add more value to our instant game partnership with NCEL through SCiQ, and we look forward to working with NCEL retailers to make selling Scratch-Offs as easy and efficient as possible.
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