Nearly half a century, and things only keep getting better for Scientific Games and the New York Lottery.
The two lottery titans announced an extension of their scratch games partnership, which dates back to 1976. With the announcement, Scientific Games (SG) continues its role as the primary provider of scratch games for the New York Lottery.
According to La Fleur’s 2024 World Almanac, the New York Lottery has the eighth-largest market worldwide for instant scratch games.
Scientific Games holds an estimated 70% of the global market for instant win games, including the New York Lottery and 39 other US jurisdictions. It’s also a leader in iLottery, providing services for many online lottery sites in the US.
NY Lottery and Scientific Games continue innovative tradition
Through SG and the New York Lottery’s contract, the former will provide the latter with several resources to ensure it stays at the forefront of innovation. These include:
- Consumer and product research
- Data analytics
- Game development
- Portfolio planning
For nearly 50 years, the two companies have worked together to achieve mutual success. SG produced the New York Lottery’s first-ever scratch game and remains a vital means of production and distribution for the state’s 14,000 lottery retailers.
John Schulz, President of Americas & Global Instant Products for Scientific Games, said:
“We’re honored to continue as the primary scratch-off game provider to one of the world’s most successful lotteries and support their important mission to fund education for New York students. Our long-standing, strategic partnership has continued to bring entertaining scratch entertainment experiences to players in the state, and we look forward to many more decades of success together.”
Scientific Games does not work with the New York online lottery, which only offers subscriptions to select draw games.
New York features the largest lottery in North America
The New York Lottery is North America’s largest and most profitable lottery. In fiscal year 2023, it contributed $3.7 billion to supporting education in New York State. Since 1967, it has funded more than $82 billion of New York’s public education programs, helping more than 700 school districts statewide.
“The New York Lottery is proud to continue its partnership with Scientific Games,” said Gweneth Dean, Director of the New York Lottery. “For decades, our collaboration has resulted in billions of dollars for New York’s public schools, and we look forward to creating exciting new games for our players and supporting our dedicated retailers across the state.”
Scratch games were a $4.4 billion industry in FY 2023 and were one of the most significant contributors to the lottery’s aid to education. Other prominent contributors included popular lottery draw games like Mega Millions and Powerball.
New York State distributes lottery revenue based on a statutory formula considering a district’s size and income level. Larger and lower-income school districts receive more funding.
Partnership extension will utilize new technology
The recently renewed partnership comes less than a month after SG held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the release of its new, high-definition scratch game technology. SG invested $65 million into the tech, which is the most advanced in the industry and allows lotteries to create the best game experience available for players.
Of course, all New York Lottery scratch games will utilize this technology.
SG also recently committed to further growth in the Americas, proving a worthy partner for the New York Lottery in the future. Last week, the company named Mike Cardell as its new SVP of its Americas operations. Cardell has over 17 years of related business technology experience and is recognized as a pioneer industrywide.
Photo by Scott Rothstein via Shutterstock
Graphics from the New York Lottery and Scientific Games
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