The Young Lions challenged the traditional ways of thinking

The EL 2011 Congress - Northern Light introduced for the first time in the history of the EL Congresses an opportunity for young lottery professionals to show what they are capable of. The Young Lions, divided into three groups, set out to solve a common problem of the lottery business: how young people can be turned into active lottery customers. The Lions pointed out that the old tricks will not work when we want to attract new, younger customers. During the two and half days of the programme, the Lions came up with nine innovative concepts for the future development of lotteries. The Lions’ coach Aki Järvinen, PhD, wants to remind everyone that the Young Lions’ innovative ideas can be freely employed by the EL members.

"I hope that the executives of all of lotteries would pay attention to the results and start to evaluate these for the business. These ideas are a good start to refine for particular national markets and legislation."

Mr Järvinen was pleased that these young people were given the chance to show their mettle and hoped that the Young Lions concept would continue in future congresses. "People in these positions usually don't have the opportunity to present their ideas for an international forum. The participants said in their feedback to Aki Järvinen, that the key in this program was to meet new people and to work with them under time constrains and deadlines. For someone who has been working in creative industry for a decade or so it was a great opportunity to see that there are promising future lottery people coming!"

The teams and their winning concepts

The Lions were given feedback on their concepts from Ray Bates, EL Honorary President and Thorbjorn Almlid, CEO of Norsk Tipping. In addition, the congress delegates had the chance to vote for their favourites in each category.

Team Simba’s idea was voted the best in both the Social Media Games and Lottery Refresh categories. Their "Expert winning" concept would turn betting more social, enabling even those who know nothing about betting to take up gaming by following the example of their friends who are experts in a given game. As for Lottery Refresh, Team Simba would leave out the numbers from number games and take the games to the worlds of favourite bands or the cinema. "Our games tend to be the same year after year. Change the scene and provide your players with something different. Be a chameleon", the Simbas suggested.

Team Simba’s members were:
Bernardo Chagas, Jean-Baptiste Maupas-Oudinot, Rebecka Johansson, Manal Bensalah, Barbara Ableidinger, Heini Roosimägi and Christos Dimitriadis.

The winner of the category Reinventing the Retail was the Recyclelot concept by Team Future Factory. Recyclelot would operate in bottle return machines: a person returning bottles would get a lottery ticket for the worth of the bottles returned. Team Future Factory pointed out that queuing up to buy a lottery ticket is not the first thing young people will think about on, e.g., a weekend morning. "Recycling is on the rise everywhere in Europe, so there will definitely be a market for this concept”, said the members of Team Future Factory.

The young innovators of Team Future Factory were: Kjersti Veum, Jani Groznik, Kai Grunewald, Enikö Sarí, Ingrid Veneri and Tomas Kruse.

Team Inceptor raised the difference between traditional and young consumers: In young people’s minds, lotteries are irrelevant. Dreams have evolved: a car and a house aren't young people’s dreams but those of their parents. Young people prefer to invest in social capital. Since young people do not go to places where games are offered, Team Inceptor encouraged lotteries to introduce games to young people’s own settings in ways that are best suited for them. "Don't stand out, fit in. Infiltrate/adapt", was Team Inceptor’s advice; they proposed, e.g., a scratch ticket to be placed on the lid of a paper coffee cup.

Team Inceptor consisted of: Janne Vuorenmaa, Christina Hauenstein, Gita Kurkilietyte, Sebastian Meitz, Pekka Tamminen, Jochen Weiner and Kristina Zarina.