Start and development
The need to create a mobile application for lotteries, we recognized more than six years ago. We needed an additional opportunity to “reach out” to customers: both already loyal lottery participants, and new ones. The key point in the development is the implementation of the functions that our site provided at that time: buying lottery tickets, viewing the results of draws, notification of winnings, etc.
Then we started to “screw” additional options to it. Now, for example, in the Stoloto mobile application there is a showcase where you can choose a ticket for any state lottery draw. Using the application, you can also watch broadcasts of draws from the lottery center in Moscow. One of my favorite features is the shake. When you can not decide on the choice of numbers, you can simply shake your smartphone to make an automatic bet.
In fact, we follow the trends in the mobile world: we personalize our application as much as possible. This plays into the hands of all participants. We can communicate with users directly, analyzing what content they are interested in. For example, to offer a user with a history of participating in quick lotteries a ticket for a drawing that will take place in a couple of minutes or to remind a regular Russian Lotto participant to buy a ticket for a Jackpot drawing next weekend. Our customers receive customized offers that are fully consistent with their interests.
Current results
What result have we reached in these six years? The “mobile” share in state lotteries reached 60% of online sales (this is about a quarter of all sales). Yes, there are still many people who like to chat with the seller live or to hold a lottery ticket in their hands. After all, lotteries on the Web are a pure digital product that does not have a physical embodiment, these are impressions and emotions. But we managed to “capture” an audience that was ready to go mobile. In addition, many of our customers use several channels at the same time: many buyers from retail chains check the results of circulations in the application.
Recently, the consulting company BCG published a report with the data that in Russia over the past eight years there has been a phenomenal increase in the number of cashless payments: from 5.8 to 172 per year per person. Now in the top are bank cards and direct bank payments, but mobile payment systems are pushing ahead. We took this trend into account: ¬Apple Pay is one of the most popular ways to pay for lottery tickets in our iOS app. It is second only to the cards and the Stoloto wallet.
The Stoloto mobile application is regularly included in the top 5 of the Entertainment section of the Apple Store. Now this platform is visited by more than 56 thousand unique users per day. In total, in the first nine months of 2019, 1,360,936 people used the iOS application.
Our pain is Google Play Market
Android users also contact us regularly, but we cannot support them with the same level of service as in iOS applications. Unfortunately, it is not yet possible to agree with the Google Play Market - this platform does not support the distribution of state lotteries. In her opinion, we enter the category of cash rates and gambling, which is prohibited on this resource. But we are negotiating with them and hope that next year we will resolve the issue. Moreover, in a number of countries - France, Ireland and England - Google allows local lottery distributors to promote their applications on this platform.
So far, we had to create and distribute our own APK-file on a smartphone. But when you install it, a notification is issued that this application is not recommended by Google. I have to explain to each user why he should continue to use it. We try to mitigate this situation using landings and other marketing tools, explaining to users that our application is absolutely legal, safe and convenient. And if reluctance to accept third-party files is important, then there is always the opportunity to use the mobile version of the Stoloto website.
Despite the ban, the total number of unique visitors to our Android application for the first 9 months of this year was 1,342,227 people. Great figure. And quite comparable to the iOS application. Although we know from the distribution of platforms on the market that it should be larger than iOS, Google’s limitations greatly influence this.
The future of digital lotteries
Speaking of the numbers on the main and mobile sites, we can boast that from June to September this year, the average number of unique users per month was 4.5 million. And for the first nine months of 2019, only our mobile site was visited by 17 210 103 unique.
We try to look forward and understand what will be important for the mobile lottery participant in the future. What are we betting on? On the development of technical support, product areas and streams, as well as on new ways to identify users. We are following the news of the IT industry, we are interested in browser-based applications - a hybrid of applications and mobile versions, which gives advantages of both. I will discuss all this in more detail in the following posts.