Paul's Blog June 18, 2018
People will forget what you said. They will even forget what you did. What they will remember is how you made them feel.
Maya Angelou
The people of Switzerland have spoken and they want laws to be enforced against illegal online gambling. They voted to support a regulatory system that allows legally licensed online operators, but blocks consumers from accessing unlicensed online i-Gaming operators. In a popular vote, the new Swiss Gambling Act won the support of 72.9% of Swiss voters. This overwhelming majority reflects a stunning rebuke of the disingenuous campaigns waged by the community of unlicensed online i-Gambling website operators. These unlicensed operators tried to convince the Swiss people that the Swiss Gambling Act constitutes internet censorship and infringes on the consumers’ right to choose – “Don’t let the government tell you what websites you can gamble on”. It can be an effective argument. Who doesn’t support the ideal of personal freedom and the right to choose where we shop or which merchants we patronize? Thankfully, the Swiss people see through this smokescreen and voted to protect the public from illegality, enforce the laws, minimize problem gambling, and prevent the online trafficking in illegal activities.
Massachusetts Treasurer Deborah Goldberg continues to press the case for moving the Mass Lottery online. “Sports betting is a concern," Goldberg said. "If you have sports betting, casinos, and fantasy sports, and the lottery does not go online, it will shortly become irrelevant. It's very straightforward. We don't want to go the way of Toys R Us." As soon as the Supreme Court announced the decision to end the federal prohibition of sports-betting, Goldberg said she "immediately reached out to Legislative leadership to ensure a seat at the table" to determine regulatory policy and who should be authorized to offer sports-betting.
According to the United States Trade and Patent Office, 95% of patent applications are denied. And among the ideas that do receive patents, only 3% ever generate any revenue. These are not very encouraging odds! How can we improve the ROI on new ideas and innovation? That is the concern that is causing us to include more articles on the convergence of Predictive Analytics, Big Data, AI, Machine Learning, and their enabling technologies. These articles may not always relate directly to the business of Lottery. But they do relate directly and will have profound impact on the business of retailing, of driving innovation and modernization, of understanding the consumer, of delivering value to your customer.
The article “How Amazon Pulled Off Its Biggest Deliver Ever, a Masterpiece of Buzz Marketing” is a little long and tedious. It may be important, though, for pointing at a new direction for PR and promotion, new ways to engage consumer attention and interest, creative strategies for driving ‘viral’ traction to your idea. Not that marketing is a ‘con’, but analogously it’s as if all we have ever known is the ‘short con’, and Amazon is introducing us to the ‘long con.’
Click Here to register for PGRI Lottery Expo NYC, October 22 to 24. See you there!