Building Player Loyalty for Lotteries

A lottery loyalty program is a registered players club that lets a lottery know its players, reach them directly and reward engagement beyond the ticket, through second-chance drawings, member events, content and communications. Its purpose is a stronger relationship with players, measured in registration, active participation and reach, not in how much each player spends.

That purpose follows from what a lottery is. In the United States, lotteries are regulated by their state governments, and their proceeds go to a government's general fund or to dedicated causes such as education, the environment and programs for senior citizens and veterans, according to the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries (NASPL). A public purpose comes with a public duty: a lottery is expected to promote responsible play, not more of it. Most loyalty programs succeed when members spend more. A lottery program has to succeed without that goal.

The design consequence is simple to state and harder to build: a program must never make things worse for the players at risk, and help must always be within reach. This guide follows a player's path through a lottery program, from anonymous buyer to registered member, active member and protected member, and covers the rewards, safeguards and measures each step needs. It is written for lotteries; other forms of gaming carry their own rules. It is general information, not legal advice.

Two facts set lottery loyalty apart from other consumer programs: the goal is not more spend, and much of the play is anonymous.

• The goal is the relationship, not the wager. Success is measured by how many players the lottery knows, reaches and supports, not by incremental spend per player. Sales still matter, because they fund state beneficiaries (US lotteries transferred almost $30.6 billion to beneficiaries in fiscal year 2024, according to NASPL), but growth that comes from a few players playing much more, rather than from more players taking part at a comfortable level, works against the lottery's responsible gaming duty.
• Much retail play is anonymous. NASPL reports that US lottery tickets are sold at approximately 223,000 locations, many of them convenience stores, gas stations and supermarkets, and a cash purchase at the counter tells the lottery nothing about who bought the ticket. Before a program can engage or protect anyone, it has to give players a reason to identify themselves.

Those two facts shape every later choice. Registration is the first goal, rewards have to stay separate from play, responsible gaming is part of the design rather than a policy page, and the measures look different from a retail program's. The business case for a players club, including costs and when one does not pay, is covered in lottery loyalty program benefits.

Second-chance drawings are one practical first step: they give a non-winning ticket a second use and give players a reason to register.

In a second-chance drawing, players enter non-winning tickets online or in an app for another chance at prizes. The mechanic does three things at once. It gives a losing ticket some remaining value, it gives the player a reason to create an account, and it tells the lottery which games registered players buy. The Idaho Lottery's VIP Club works this way: registered members enter codes from non-winning scratch tickets into 2nd Chance drawings for prizes.

When Brandmovers modernized the Idaho Lottery's legacy loyalty program on BLOYL™, Brandmovers' enterprise loyalty platform, the work set out to bring the VIP club and the main lottery website closer together, and gave administrators tools to create and launch second-chance promotions and sweepstakes and to create triggered player communications. The case study reports that "Traffic to the site increased over 6X more than previous years" (disclosed by Brandmovers). The page gives no period or baseline, so read it as a reach signal: more site visitors, not necessarily more registrations. The case study also describes analytics that help the lottery understand the purchase behaviors of players who buy at retail and use that data for targeted promotions and offers. Under the principles in this guide, that kind of data is best used to choose relevant content and to spot rising play, not to aim bigger offers at the heaviest players.

More tickets still mean more entries, so a second-chance program needs controls that keep it from becoming a reason to buy:

• Validate every entry code against the lottery's ticket data, so only eligible tickets enter and each ticket counts once. The Idaho Lottery's 2nd Chance rules, for example, say tickets may be entered only once. Plan that integration with the lottery's IT team before launch.
• Cap entries per player per promotion, so buying extra tickets cannot keep raising a player's odds.
• Check age at registration, against the state's minimum age, before any entry is accepted, and confirm it again when a prize is claimed. A self-entered birth date is easy to falsify, so use stronger verification where state rules or prize values call for it.
• Honor self-exclusion before an entry counts, checking the state's self-exclusion list where one exists. Checking a statewide list may need a data-sharing arrangement with the agency that holds it, so plan that integration before launch.
• Choose prizes that do not loop back into play where state rules allow, such as experiences and merchandise, rather than free tickets. Ticket prizes are used in practice (at least one current Idaho Lottery 2nd Chance drawing awards scratch tickets), so treat them as a choice to review with the lottery's responsible gaming team rather than a default.

Once players are known, engage them with information, content and recognition that deepen the relationship without prompting more play.

A registered player can hear about draw results, prize claims, new games they have chosen to follow, member events and changes to the program. That direct channel is one of the main reasons to register players, and it lasts only while messages stay useful. A steady stream of buy-now prompts risks unsubscribes, and messages that urge purchases sit badly with a lottery's responsible gaming duty.

• Inform rather than prompt. Notifications should carry results, entry confirmations or a prize to claim, not a countdown to buy.
• Send only what players opted into, cap message frequency and make opting out easy. Confirm the consent requirements for email and text messages, and how the state's privacy rules apply to the player data the program collects and keeps, with the lottery's counsel before launch.
• Segment by interest, not spend. Group players by the games and topics they follow and how they prefer to hear from the lottery. A player whose entries across promotions, or purchase points where the program awards them, rise sharply is a signal to offer limit-setting tools and helpline information, not a target for a bigger offer.
• Do not aim appeals at minors or the youngest players. Keep creative and channels away from anyone under the state's minimum age, and build segments that do not single out the youngest eligible players. NCPG notes that children and teens are at higher risk than adults of developing a gambling problem, and that people who start gambling at a young age are more likely to develop a gambling addiction later in life. The same caution is a sensible guide for players who have only just reached the minimum age.

Where a state sells tickets online, the program may sit one tap from a purchase, so the same rules apply with more force. The guide to lottery player engagement covers app features, ticket scanning and player data in more depth.

Reward what players do besides buying, such as registering, entering tickets they already hold and learning, and avoid incentives that push players to wager more.

Rewards and game mechanics give players reasons to return, and the same pull is the risk in a lottery. A streak for buying tickets on consecutive days, bonus points for spending a threshold or a deadline urging purchases turns the mechanic into pressure to gamble.

Some lottery players clubs do award points on purchases. The Idaho Lottery's VIP Club, for example, awards points on draw and scratch game purchases, normally on a one-to-one basis, with bonus points on certain games during promotions. Purchase points give players a simple reason to identify themselves at the counter, and that is the trade-off: they make registration easier, but they reward play itself. A lottery that keeps them can still limit the risk by avoiding bonus multipliers on specific games, capping promotional earning and offering limit-setting tools to players whose earning rises sharply. What points buy matters as much as how they are earned. Idaho Lottery VIP points, for example, can be used for sweepstakes entries, limited-time items or donations to Do Good projects that benefit Idaho public schools and buildings. Donations and merchandise keep redemption away from play; redemption for tickets or uncapped entries brings it back.

BLOYL supports this kind of design with earning for non-purchase actions such as profile completion, surveys and content engagement, and a promotions builder for sweepstakes, instant wins and bonus events alongside the loyalty program. Use those tools with the same rules: NCPG notes anecdotal reports that a fast speed of play may be a risk factor, so tie instant-win plays to non-purchase actions, limit how often they can be played and keep bonus events away from purchase thresholds. Points that are issued but never redeemed also need attention. In a lottery, a high unredeemed share can mean players registered for one promotion and left, so track it as an engagement signal rather than a saving. Unredeemed points can also be an outstanding obligation until they expire, so agree expiry rules and an expected redemption rate with the lottery's finance team before launch, rather than treating unredeemed points as budget relief. The guide to incorporating gamification covers mechanic design in more depth.

A lottery loyalty program succeeds by knowing its players, serving them and protecting them, not by pushing them to play more. Turn anonymous buyers into registered members through capped second-chance drawings, engage them with information rather than purchase prompts, keep rewards separate from play, build responsible gaming into every channel and measure the relationship rather than the spend. A program is working when registrations, reach and safeguard use rise and spend per member does not climb with them.