The National Lottery Launches Voice App for Google Assistant and Alexa
The “Lottery Now” voice assistant app was recently launched in the UK, and was developed by Core. The National Lottery is the state-franchised national lottery in the United Kingdom and is one of the first lotteries in Europe to launch a voice assistant application allowing players to check their numbers. Available to Google Home and Amazon Alexa users, players can check their numbers with their voice in Lotto, EuroMillions and Daily Millions draws using the Lottery Now app. Users can use commands such as “What’s tonight’s Lotto jackpot?”, “What were last night’s EuroMillions numbers?”, or “When is the next Daily Million draw?” National Lottery Chief Executive, Dermot Griffin, told the Irish Times,
In developing the ‘Lottery Now’ voice assistant [marketing communications agency] Core has demonstrated that we can come up with smart customer solutions when technology, customer behavior, and creativity are considered together.
Lottery Voice Apps Grow Consumer Interest in Third Party Apps
The National Lottery is not the first gaming franchise to launch a voice-assistant application of this kind. There are more than 300 results that appear when looking for lottery-based Alexa skills, and most are offering to read users updated United States lottery information. Some even offer a random ticket number generator. The coverage of Alexa lottery skills ranges from Mega Millions numbers, Powerball numbers, to individual state’s lotteries, like New York, Ohio, and Virginia. The real significance of the National Lottery voice application is that it is one of the first of its kind not only in the UK, but Europe as well, and it was actually produced by the National Lottery. Most of those 300+ lottery skills are created by completely independent developers, focusing only on US lotteries. In 2016, Gallup conducted a poll with a random sample of 1,025 adults living in all 50 US States and the District of Columbia. The poll found that nearly half of all US adults say that had played in the state lottery that year. Technavio reports that the global lottery market is anticipated to grow at a steady rate and will post a compound annual growth rate of more than 9% from 2017-2021. Lottoland reports that a staggering 70% of the UK’s over 18s take part in the national lottery on a regular basis, which is close to 45 million people. Griffin commented,
We have made it easier for participants in our games to check their numbers and are proud to be one of the first lotteries in Europe to launch this capability.
