Are state Indian government-run online lotteries really online? Will paper tickets disappear someday? The pandemic was not able to push Bharat state lotteries to cyberspace, but the future is imminently digital.
What Does ‘Online Lottery’ Mean in India?
Many people around the world imagine ‘online lottery’ to be something completely digital, including electronic tickets, and their marketing, distribution and sale all happening in cyberspace, and at the end sophisticated random number generators drawing the winning numbers.
Currently, this is not exactly the case in India, and perhaps the best explanation of what ‘online lottery’ actually means in Bharat is given by the CEO of Sugal & Damani, nowadays one the biggest players on the country’s lottery market. “Online lottery means it is a retailer assisted lottery ticket being sold at the retailer but controlled through a central server by the concerned state government,” as he puts it.
He should know, considering that his company runs around 65 per cent of the Indian “online” lottery market through approximately 25,000 terminals across the country that process around 1.8 crore transactions per day.
As per the Indian legislation, lotteries fall under the powers granted to states and as of today 13 Bharat states have regulated and run their own lottery draws. Reportedly, this market has been contributing between ₹35,000 crore and ₹50,000 crore per year to state and national public finances and welfare programs.
True Digital Online Lottery Does Exist in India
Besides server-run government lottery schemes, a number of dedicated online lottery websites provide Indians with access to digital copies or scanned paper tickets of up to 50 of the world’s biggest and most popular lottery draws. Thus, desi online users get to play on European, American, Asian and Australian market leaders such as MegaMillions, EuroMillions, El Gordo and many others.
Other websites are comparing offers including the Powerball lottery ticket price in India sold by various individual resellers to desi consumers as the tickets for the famous American lottery with unlimited jackpot is available for direct purchase only in the US, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
The Digitizing Effect of Covid
A number of foreign lottery operators answered the challenges placed by the Covid-induced lockdowns with rapid digitization offering mobile versions and lottery apps to previous paper ticket customers. Examples like the UK National Lottery have shown that online distribution has the capacity to make up for offline sale drops, or even to exceed them.
Many other businesses survived or even maintained sustainability by migrating, substantially or completely, to digital platforms. On the other hand, inherently online businesses like mobile gaming saw a rapid surge, with users spending 4.1 hours on average per week gaming on their smartphone during the first Covid-induced lockdowns, compared to the average 2.5 hours before the pandemic. Even after the lockdowns were relaxed, average gaming time stayed at a level higher than pre-Covid times at 3.1 hours.
Indian State Lotteries Are Falling Behind, But the Future Is Imminent
Even without considering the effects of the new coronavirus pandemic, the internet penetration in India is growing rapidly with subscribers reaching 82.530 crore as of March 31, 2021, fueled by the availability of affordable smartphones and the world’s cheapest mobile data plans.
On the other hand, all the lottery draws organized by various Indian states are staying on the conservative side instead of reinvesting some portion of their revenues in innovation and actual online operations.
International practice has shown that a transition to online-based operations will provide more opportunities for growth and will enhance revenues. At the same time, such a shift will bring better control and raise safety standards, including the enabling of modern solutions to combat problem gambling and addictions. The creation of new job opportunities and the facilitation of payments are also among the benefits that lottery digitization will bring.
Considering the size of tax and non-tax revenues from lotteries, it is inevitable that this sector will follow the digitization trend and shift from server-assisted “online” distribution and sale of paper tickets to true electronic existence in the online realm.
