Games: VeriFone Installing Self-Service Lottery Devices in US Cabs and Gas Stations
- The e-payment specialist VeriFone has officially announced a new solution making it possible for customers to purchase lottery tickets in cabs and in gas stations.
- These taxis are equipped with VeriFone’s interactive touchscreens and the lottery feature is to be added soon to allow customers to pay by card, print their receipt or store their e-ticket on their online gaming account.
- Nearly 14,000 taxis in the US are currently equipped with VeriFone Media’s digital screens (including 6,000 in New York). Likewise adapted equipment should be installed in Pennsylvanian gas stations during the second quarter 2012.
- This initiative relies on a partnership between VeriFone and Linq3 Technologies. The latter has recently partnered with the Minnesota State Lottery and announced a pilot programme to dispense lottery tickets at 70 ATMs in Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
- VeriFone’s development strategy relies on proposing solutions for staging areas and, most of all, in contexts where vacant time is key. This original initiative could generate many payment transactions.
- According the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries (NASPL), the US State lottery market was worth 58.8 billion dollars in 2011; lottery sales are now mostly profitable to US tuck shops. This monopoly generates significant traffic in these stores, and an important source of revenue for 200,000 merchants making about four billion dollars in commissions from their sales of lottery tickets.
- VeriFone hopes that mobile services could soon prevail in this market and become distribution channels for e-coupons, merchant promotions or loyalty programmes.