There may be more millennials walking the face of the Earth at present but only a few of them are playing lottery.
This is the stark reality that technology start-up AutoLotto has to face as only one-third of people aged 20 to 35 bought a lottery ticket last year. While lotteries racked up $80 billion in sales last, overall numbers are declining.
CNBC reported that AutoLotto is attempting to lure millennials into playing the lottery through its app. Using the app, it is now possible for users to purchase lotto tickets using their smart phones.
Players who bought tickets in stores may use the app in order to alert them should they win. All they have to do is scan the ticket using the app.
So far, the effort of AutoLotto has reaped the company positive results, as 57 percent of its user base are now millennials.
“Mobile just makes sense,” Tony DiMatteo, co-founder of AutoLotto, said. “Millennials shop and play games on their phones a lot. And they don’t make up a lot of the foot traffic to the traditional retailers that sell lottery tickets, whether that’s your local pharmacy or a store at the gas station.”
What the start up do is it buys and keeps the original paper tickets. Players don’t need to fret about their tickets since the company insures it in case anything goes wrong at its holding facility.
AutoLotto will be the one to bring the player’s winning ticket to the local lottery agency to redeem the prize. Once they got hold of the money, AutoLotto will pay out winners via its app.
To ramp its operations, AutoLotto raised $17 million in a series A round of venture funding. The investors include iHeartMedia, and Fortress Investments, a fund affiliated with U.S. newspaper publishers, GateHouse Media, along with several angel investors.
It also secured an authorization to sell Powerball tickets via mobile to customers in eight states.
Tom Arrix, former vice president of global marketing solutions at Facebook and one of AutoLotto’s investors, pointed out that the company has a potential to expand outside the US.
“Gaming is highly regulated here. And AutoLotto’s approach is ideal. … But other markets offer the potential to expand more broadly, even beyond the lottery.”
