Published February 18, 2025
Arizona Lottery
Arizona’s holiday lineup included five games: one each at $1, $2, $3, $5 and $10. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
This year, we replaced our $10 Advent calendar-style game with a holiday-themed Triple Red 7 concept. Triple Red 7 is a core game for the Arizona Lottery, and we split the game into two artwork pulses (“holiday” and “normal”) to allow the game to remain in the market after the season. Our holiday $10 saw a 51% increase year over year, and this was the best-selling Triple Red 7s game to date.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
We did not offer a $20 holiday game; we shifted the $20 game to the January family so it could be included in our MONOPOLY launch. Instead, we included a previously launched $20 ticket, $500,000 Gold Rush, in our holiday advertising and promotion. We also only launched a single $5 Fast Play game in 2024 instead of a $2 and a $5. Due to both of these changes, overall holiday sales were lower than the previous year, but games from $1 to $10 were up 30% year-over-year.
In addition to pulsing Triple Red 7s, we also pulsed our $3 Crossword, so we had holiday versions of existing core concepts. This increased sales and reduced returns at the end of the season, as those games remained in the market.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
Players had the opportunity to win a once-in-a-lifetime trip to The Big Island, courtesy of the Arizona Lottery Players Club Hawaiian Holiday Giveaway. Players could enter eligible holiday tickets into the Arizona Lottery Players Club app or website; they received one entry per dollar. Fifty lucky winners have been selected to go on a vacation for two, including travel, hotel, meals, special gifts, and experiences. Winners will stay in luxury accommodations at the Fairmont Orchid on the Island of Hawaii for six nights in December 2025.
Other holiday games:
As noted, we also launched a $5 Fast Play game called Secret Santa.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
We will continue to pulse our $3 and $10 products, and plan to bring back the $20 game for holiday 2025. We will also bring back the $2 Fast Play game, as those sales did not transfer to the $5.
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Arkansas Scholarship Lottery
Arkansas’ holiday lineup included three games: one each at $1, $2 and $3. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
The $1 White Elephant and the $3 Peppermint Payout Multiplier were the most successful. Great themes, fun play styles, and very good sell-through rates.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
We added a $3 extended play game to the holiday launch, a line match game. Players had a chance to multiply their winnings up to 10X when they won in any row in the play area. The game had 15 top prizes of $10,000. Normally, a $3 game’s top prize is $75,000, but since this was a seasonal game, the print quantity was much lower.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
The holiday is important to us; however, we do not really put a major emphasis on promoting our holiday products. We focus on gift responsibly messaging, holiday scratch-offs make a great gift for adults, etc.
Other holiday games:
We also launched two holiday Fast Play games again this year: $1 Holiday Cash and $1 Candy Cane Cash.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
We will continue launching holiday game(s) next year, and will consider adding a $5 holiday game.
Atlantic Lottery
Atlantic’s holiday lineup included three games: one each at $5, $10 and $25. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
Our most successful ticket was $5 Peppermint, a scented ticket that performed 22% better than last year’s game. It was so successful that we actually ran out of product in our distribution centers prior to the holiday season, which unfortunately meant that some retailers were out of product prior to Christmas. We believe it was so successful due to the great peppermint smell of the ticket. This created a lot of buzz in the market.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
We used media and POS campaigns, promotions and second-chance drawings, with our key activity being a media campaign supporting the $25 Holiday Pack. The slogan for this year’s holiday campaign was “Scratch excitement off your list.” It was based on the idea that the holidays are great, but traditions can become tedious and shopping is stressful. So, with fun gifting options and daily chances to win, Atlantic Lottery was bringing excitement back to the holidays.
Other holiday games:
We again ran the highly anticipated holiday-themed December to Remember contest in 2024. This lets players scratch a box on our calendar to reveal the mystery prize draw or bonus offer of the day and is intended to keep the spirit of lottery excitement top-of-mind during the season. This year, we took it one step further by integrating the different products’ campaigns across retail and online into one cohesive Lottery-wide holiday campaign. Although other brands were included in the marketing, the campaign continued to primarily focus on Scratch’N Win products at retail and digital games on alc.ca.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
For the past couple of years, our $10 national holiday tickets have not performed well. This year’s ticket did surpass sales of last year’s, but still only achieved 65% sell through. We will not be launching a similar ticket in 2025.
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British Columbia Lottery Corp.
BCLC’s holiday lineup included 11 games: two each at $1, $2, $3, $5 and $10, plus one at $20. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
Our $10 25 Days of Winning had a print run of 250,000 and sold out of the warehouse in four weeks. This advent calendar-style ticket featured symbol match games which were meant to be scratched one day at a time until Christmas and sparkled with Pollard’s Spectrum Scratch FX. Our $20 Holiday Gift Pack continues to be a fan favorite, even in its twelfth year. This mylar pouch product contained nine festive tickets in each pouch. It sold out its 400,000-print run by Christmas.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
This was the thirteenth year that we offered our extremely popular digital second chance contest, “Tech the Halls.” Players enter a code – revealed on eligible holiday tickets – into a contest site for chances to win cash prizing, as well as the grand prize entertainment system. New this year, we introduced a QR code on each eligible ticket, making it easier to scan entries into the contest site. Players with phone capability could scan the QR code to directly enter their ticket into the contest. Some players commented on how they enjoyed this new feature.
In terms of promotional support, in December, retailers received POS materials including store posters, banners, and digital signage to support promotions of our Christmas Scratch & Win campaign. Our media campaign coverage included digital and social ads, digital news placements, out of home billboards/wraps, and traditional and digital radio ads – all running for the month of December. The creative for both POS and media assets focused primarily on Scratch & Win tickets for gift giving.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
The advent calendar design and game style continue to be a favorite amongst our players during the holiday season. In addition, players continue to look for variety in holiday offerings and are becoming more open to unique designs. In the past, non-traditional themes or designs did not perform as well as tickets with traditional colors and designs. This year, we introduced $5 Festive 777 with a “shocking” lavender background. This performed better than our other $5 offering, Merry Money Multiplier, which has been a long-standing holiday ticket with proven results.
California Lottery
California’s holiday lineup included four games: one each at $1, $5, $10 and $25. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
We celebrated a successful holiday season, setting a new weekly sales record for instant games in late December. Two tickets performed notably well: $1 Merry Wishes and 2025 at $25. Like other jurisdictions, the California Lottery has experienced declining sales at the $1 price point; however, Merry Wishes recorded the highest $1 sales in four years with its giftable design featuring a festive gift tag. Players also celebrated the New Year with the latest edition of our popular New Year’s game, 2025, which launched a new price point and reached the franchise’s highest sales.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
The year 2025 offered the ideal timing to introduce a new $25 price point in California. We launched our first New Year’s themed game, 2020, in the year 2020 at the $20 price point, and created a successful and popular annual player favorite that celebrates the new year and remains a key component of our annual holiday game suite. For the Lottery’s first $25 game, 2025 offered the sparkling premium design players love, with a show-stopping art deco style in black and gold options. The game’s payout percentage was 76.34%, which is on par with the low end of the payout range of a $30 game. Players rang in the new year with 2025, and the game delivered California’s highest sales for New Year’s themed games in the last six years.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
We continue our successful holiday strategy of positioning Scratchers as a fun and meaningful holiday gift, and brought back the perennial messages “Give the Gift of Scratchers” and “Give the Gift of Play.” Holiday advertising and point-of-sale featured a look and feel that captured the spirit of holiday gifting, while keeping Scratchers top-of-mind. We also debuted a new holiday TV commercial that puts a clever, humorous spin on how to gift your favorite Scratchers. Our holiday marketing was an omni-channel integrated campaign across consumer touchpoints to reach a mix of player segments at key moments in their path to purchase. Marketing components included traditional paid media support such as TV, radio and out-of-home advertising, along with robust retail point-of-sale, digital marketing, streaming video, streaming audio, social media, email marketing, and influencer marketing.
We added two exciting new advertising tactics to our holiday media plan this year, with the inclusion of Amazon Locker wraps at the entrances to Lottery retailers such as 7-Eleven, Circle K, and Save Mart grocery stores to drive awareness and visibility of Scratchers during the busy shopping period. We also featured holiday Scratchers advertising on ride-share car wraps with digital toppers in our largest markets, which offered unique visibility and high-impact impressions.
We also brought back a holiday 2nd Chance this year, to help drive new registrations and submissions during the holidays. Our loyalty program offered two 2nd Chance promotions: one for the holiday suite of Scratchers and another dedicated to the 2025 New Year’s game. Players could enter their non-winning holiday Scratchers into the bonus draws for a chance to win $20,000 in November, December and early January. The 2025 game promotion allowed players to submit their non-winning 2025 Scratchers into a bonus draw for a chance at a $25,000 prize drawn later in January.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
This holiday season confirmed that several specific strategies continue to resonate with players. Instants with gift tags at the $1 price point have been a successful design, as well as a multiplier game at the $10 price point. Holiday 2024 was the second launch of these themes and sales continued to outpace prior years. The $10 category has been a specific area of focus with varying tactics for several years. Stabilizing these two price points allows us to focus on growing sales at the $5.
In addition to the holiday suite which launches in late October, we also develop additional giftable games that release in mid-December to catch the attention of last-minute shoppers. We continued to find success with this approach in 2024, including the return of a whimsical pet-themed game and a new seasonal crossword. Our past gifting analyses have shown that instant games with themes like crossword, Loteria, bingo, pets and poker were also selected by players to gift and we plan to continue to offer these types of giftable games in addition to our holiday suite next year.
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Colorado Lottery
Colorado’s holiday lineup included five games: one each at $1, $2, $5, $10 and $20. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
This year, the Colorado Lottery explored a new strategy at our $10 holiday price point. We launched a holiday $50, $100 & $500 Blowout, which was loaded with these levels of prizes. This game was wildly popular, with a 71% payout, and despite the holiday theme, the strong sales continued into the new year.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
Our $10 and $20 holiday games were different from years past in that they featured lower top prizes, but better odds of winning those prizes. Both games performed very strongly for us, and we will certainly consider leveraging a similar strategy in the future. We also pushed our holiday launch week back one week from our typical schedule, launching the games the last Monday of October. This ensured healthier stock for those games in the very important weeks before and after Christmas. We believe those two factors strongly influenced record scratch sales in December!
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
The events and promotions teams were busy filling players’ stockings with Colorado Lottery gifts, as we hosted three different holiday promotions. To support Colorado’s game, Colorado Lotto+, the Lottery hosted a Gifting Back to Colorado terminal promotion. We rewarded players who purchased five Colorado Lotto+ tickets, with Plus, with an additional Colorado Lotto+ jackpot ticket with Plus at specific retail locations.
To create excitement around the $2 Merry Mint Money holiday ticket, while also driving traffic to our website, we hosted an online giveaway contest called Twice as Nice. Players were tasked to answer the question: Who is the nicest person on your holiday list and why? Winners of the drawing received two packs of Merry Mint Money, one for the contest winner and one for the nicest person on their holiday shopping list!
Our third promotion celebrated our holiday scratch games while also promoting responsible gifting. The Lottery team visited six different retailers throughout December. Customers could spin the prize wheel for scratch tickets and prizes while they were encouraged to sign a virtual pledge, promising not to gift lottery products to children under 18. After the promotion ended with more than 600 views and 125 pledges signed, we drew a winner from those who pledged for a fun swag giveaway prize package. This promotion held the holiday spirit close, with a festive feel, holiday treats, and décor.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
Our hands-down biggest success was in changing the launch timing for holiday scratch and changing the prize structure of the $10 and $20 games. Holiday scratch sales increased nearly 10% this year, so our players will definitely see those changes carried forward to holiday 2025.
Connecticut Lottery
Connecticut’s holiday lineup included four games: one each at $1, $2, $5 and $20. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
The $1 and $5 games proved to be most successful. These games both sold out before December 24; we believe this is because of gifting at the $1 price point. For the $5 game, we employed a strategy of not launching another $5 game in the timeframe the $5 holiday game was on sale, which we believe contributed to its impressive sell-through.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
This was the first year that we added 2nd Chance to our holiday games, and it is a strategy we plan to employ on our holiday games moving forward. Giving our players an additional way to win resonated with them. We also added a $20 game to the holiday lineup, $1,000,000 Gold. This game also features a 2nd chance opportunity with drawings happening quarterly, and is designed to be in retail for 12-16 months.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
Our biggest takeaways are to continue employing 2nd chance opportunities on holiday games, and reducing the ticket quantity on the $2 holiday game.
Delaware Lottery
Delaware’s holiday lineup included five games: one each at $1, $2, $5, $10 and $20. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
We launched our first ever $20 holiday instant, Winter Winnings, and it sold very well. The game has three scenes, and we also used sparkle paper to help bring attention to this new price point. Users were excited to have a $20 option to choose from, which contributed to its success. Also, the prize structure was a little different than our typical $20 ticket and featured a “Best Chance to Win $100 or $200” callout as well.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
As noted, the biggest change was introducing our first $20 holiday game, so we had five total games this year. As a result, the $20 sold well, but the $10 Snow Bank ticket did not perform as well as the $10 option from the year before. This could be because the $20 ticket took some of the sales away from our $10 ticket. While sales for the $10 ticket this year aren’t as strong as last year, it still did well and is still selling strong.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
Our holiday campaign promoted the five games through billboards, radio, POS and social media. We also featured the games as opportunities for users to get extra points to enter second-chance drawings through our Players Club loyalty program.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
We will reevaluate our print runs and payout percentages for the holiday games to determine more of a sweet spot for all our price points in this category. With the introduction of the $20, and knowing that we will continue with this price point next year, we might adjust the number of tickets produced and the payout percentages of some of the holiday games.
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Florida Lottery
Florida’s holiday lineup included five games: one each at $1, $2, $5, $10 and $20. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
The $5 $100,000 Holiday Blowout was the most successful of the holiday games, as this game had both the highest volume in sales and received the highest number of entries in the $5,000,000 Holiday Blowout Bonus Play. The $5 price point also continues to be the most popular for gifting and personal purchases during the holiday season.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
The holiday games were supported by the $5,000,000 Holiday Blowout Bonus Play promotion, allowing players to enter their non-winning Holiday Blowout family games and The Perfect Gift tickets for extra chances to win cash prizes up to $20,000 and more than $4,500,000 in instant-win cash coupons.
Other holiday games:
All $1 or more Pick daily games tickets purchased during each entry period were also eligible for entry into the Bonus Play promotion, accounting for over 12 million of the more than 16 million tickets entered.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
The Holiday Blowout Bonus Play is a key factor in the purchasing decisions of Florida Lottery players. Players continue to report the most appealing aspects of the promotion are the chance to win drawing prizes and instant-win cash coupons (55%), as well as the opportunity to receive bonus entries with the entry of The Perfect Gift (52%) or the complete Holiday Blowout family (46%). The Holiday Bonus Plays continue to influence many players to purchase eligible tickets, as reported by 63% of players. The popularity of Bonus Play and high ranking of features and prizes indicate the promotion elements are appealing; however, awareness is an area with an opportunity to improve. Awareness of the Holiday Bonus Play has seen a decline from 84% in 2021 to 68% in 2024, indicating the need for strategic adjustments.
Hoosier Lottery
Hoosier’s holiday lineup included five games: one each at $1, $2, $3, $5 and $10. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
On a year-over-year basis our $10 Holiday Cash Blowout was our best performer, presumably because it is a core game and maintains a strong following and a consistent sales level.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
We launched the same scratch-off price points in 2024 as we did in 2023. However, for Fast Play we dropped the $1 and $3 games and added a $10 game in 2024 in response to increasing demand for higher priced tickets. As a result, we saw a 19% increase in holiday Fast Play sales with one fewer game on market.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
The best way to spread holiday cheer is by gifting Hoosier Lottery tickets! We know that the act of gifting brings Hoosiers as much joy (if not more) as receiving gifts themselves. Inspired by the whimsical, lovable spirit of the movie ELF, our holiday campaign playfully demonstrated how our holiday scratch-offs amplify every moment – big and small – that Hoosiers share together and love so much about the holidays by dialing the cheer level up to 11. In addition to a robust promotional plan that included mass media support, we created a multi-channel promotional plan to spread holiday cheer throughout the gift giving season.
myLOTTERY Promotions: Our free player program featured two unique promotions for the holidays.
2nd Chance Promotion: Players could extend the fun by entering eligible non-winning holiday scratch-offs for a chance to win cash prizes. The entry period was October 1 to January 13. There were 20 $500 winners, four $5,000 winners and one $10,000 winner.
Holiday Ticket Hunt: We built an engaging digital game that asked myLOTTERY members to find holiday scratch-offs within festive holiday scenes. We created a few fun, holiday-themed scenes to hide 1-3 tickets each week. The entry period was November 5 to December 30. After logging in and clicking to start the game, players were entered to win one of eight available prize packs. Those packs included a custom designed gift box with holiday scratch-offs, a candle and cozy blanket, beanie and socks, plus a record player to enjoy all the Holiday tunes.
Retail Promotions and Events – motivate the gift of play near the point-of-purchase: In partnership with various retailers, we conducted omnichannel holiday promotions across grocery, convenience and liquor stores. By purchasing Hoosier Lottery products, shoppers were entered to win prizes like loyalty points, outdoor tailgate items, gift cards, scratch-offs, and more. We completed 15 holiday scratch-offs retail events across the state between December 2 and 23. By purchasing $5 in holiday scratch-offs, players had the chance to spin the Hoosier Lottery prize wheel to win merchandise and tickets.
Sponsorship Activations – amplify cheer through event integration: In addition to selling holiday scratch-offs and integrating the holiday gifting message into onsite activations with the Indianapolis Colts, Indiana Pacers, Indy Classic and various hockey partnerships, we amplified the cheer at holiday events. The Christmas Gift & Hobby show is a multi-day shopping event that helps kick off the holiday season in Indianapolis. We sold holiday tickets from the Hoosier Lottery trailer in the booth space, and created a selfie station. The Circle of Lights is a popular tree lighting event, and we gave away holiday scratch-off coupons to spectators 18+, aired holiday TV commercials throughout the event, and joined the hosts on stage to promote the Lottery’s message. And to help promote the Elf scratch-off, we partnered with movie theaters to sponsor pre-movie trivia and to run the Lottery’s holiday TV commercial. On select nights, we were onsite at a movie theater to give away free tickets.
Media Giveaways – Spreading the Cheer: To help invite Hoosiers into the holiday spirit and encourage them to spread cheer through scratch-off gifts, we partnered with radio and draw stations across the state of Indiana to give away Hoosier Lottery holiday prize packs on-air.
Social Media Extensions – Hoosiers Gifting Hoosiers:
Influencer Partnerships: To prompt more organic content around gifting and spreading cheer, we sent influencers a care package with a custom designed gift box full of cheer spreading gifts such as a candle, blanket, beanie, socks, and a record player. They were asked to create videos of themselves interacting with these items and talking about gifting holiday scratch-offs. We supplied them with an extra of each item to gift to a follower: “Comment or share to win a gift that Hoosier Lottery gave me to give to you!”
Social Media Giveaway: We gave away the holiday prize pack to two Facebook winners and two Instagram winners.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
We will continue to evaluate past performance as well as future opportunities with our holiday offerings to optimize variety and sales and variety within the holiday lineup.
Idaho Lottery
Idaho’s holiday lineup included five games: one each at $1, $3, $5, $10 and $20. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
The $5 Merry 7s was the fastest selling game of the holiday season. Typically, the $5 price point is the most popular for our scratch products. This year, though, we reduced the number of $5 holiday games from two to one, meaning that Merry 7s as a holiday game did not have any competition from another $5 holiday game in the marketplace. At press time, three of our five holiday games year have ended as a claim out.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
We did alter the game lineup from previous years. As noted, we reduced the number of $5 holiday offerings. We also dropped the $2 price point in favor of a $3 Cashword game.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
Joy Worth Sharing, a theme developed for 2019, was used for the sixth consecutive year. We also offered players a second-chance opportunity to win one of ten $1,000 cash prizes by entering non-winning, 2024 holiday-themed scratch games on our website through our VIP Club. This year, after players entered their 8-digit alphanumeric number, players got to “spin” a holiday wheel to see how many entries they received for the drawing. There were nearly two million entries.
Other holiday games:
Also popular during the holiday season was the annual Idaho $1,000,000 Raffle. This year’s game, like last year’s version, offered 450,000 tickets at $10 each, with two top prizes of $1,000,000. This game sold out in early December, leaving players with holiday scratch tickets as their only gift-giving option.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
Overall, non-holiday scratch ticket sales were up, so players were looking to buy tickets during the holidays beyond the holiday lineup. Looking ahead, we believe the market can sustain two $5 holiday scratch games.
Illinois Lottery
Illinois' holiday lineup included five games: one each at $1, $2, $5, $10 and $20. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
$5 Holiday Cash Blowout. This was the first time a limited-tier game was part of the official holiday lineup. Adding a $10 prize helped lower the overall odds, enhancing the winning experience for new and infrequent players while still appealing to core players.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
The easyPack innovation was introduced in November, replacing our typical winter-themed Blowout limited-tier game; easyPack enables an oversized ticket to be included within vending machines.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
Our Holly Jolly Winnings 2nd Chance promotion was a significant focus, offering players a chance to win one of 25 weekly $500 prizes over 16 weeks, culminating in a final drawing with five $25,000 winners and one $250,000 grand prize.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
Product insights: Reintroduce the $10 Winter Blowout game in November to capture early-season demand; increase $5 Blowout inventory to prevent out-of-stock issues during peak weeks; and continue 2nd Chance promotions as a strong value-add for player engagement.
Tracking Study Insights: The 2nd Chance Promotion influenced purchases – 47% of past three-month instant players and 52% of core instant players considered it important. Increase awareness of holiday promotions – only 38% of past-three-month instant players were aware of the promotion, signaling a need for stronger marketing efforts.
Retail Insights: Vending sales grew year-over-year, presenting opportunities for further initiatives to drive incremental sales.
Kansas Lottery
Kansas’ holiday lineup included five games: one each at $1, $2, $5, $10 and $20. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
The holiday edition of Full of $500s was our best-performing ticket. Compared to the previous year’s $5 game, sales were up 48.7%, generating an additional $1,210,400. Additionally, the ticket achieved a strong 10-week index of 139. Its success can be attributed to the loaded prize structure, which enhanced player engagement by offering frequent winning opportunities and increased redemption at retail locations.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
In past years, we introduced a cohesive family of games to maximize advertising impact. This year, we shifted our focus to gameplay experience, advertising creative and launch timing. This strategic adjustment proved successful, with four out of five price points indexing higher for FY25 and an overall year-over-year sales increase of 13.9% for the group.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
The Kansas Lottery had a strong and dynamic holiday campaign. For the second consecutive year, a $20 instant ticket was included in the portfolio – Gifts of Gold debuted in August, maximizing visibility at the Kansas State Fair. Our $1, $2, $5 and $10 holiday games launched at the end of September, each featuring a second-chance opportunity with individual cash prizes. Winners were announced on February 5. The instant games also received television, radio and digital attention. In addition, the 16th annual Holiday Millionaire Raffle kicked off on September 1 and was promoted through television, radio, social media and digital ads.
Other holiday games:
As noted, this was the 16th year we have offered a holiday raffle, and the winner was announced on January 2. We introduced holiday-themed Fast Play games for the first time, following the product’s launch last June. The holiday lineup, launched at the end of October, featured Baking Spirits Bright ($1), Winter Cheer ($2), Jack Frost Jackpot ($5), and $20, $50 & $100 Winter Blowout ($10). Top prizes ranged from $1,500 to $25,000. These holiday games proved to be a strong addition, accounting for 34.3% of total Fast Play sales during the season. We look forward to expanding and enhancing this gaming option in the future.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
We learned that strategic timing, diverse game offerings, and strong marketing efforts play a crucial role in driving engagement and sales. The success of our Fast Play holiday games reinforced the demand for seasonal variety, and the inclusion of a $20 instant ticket proved valuable in expanding our portfolio. Next season, we plan to build on these insights by optimizing launch timing, enhancing second-chance promotions, and refining our advertising strategies to maximize visibility and player excitement. Additionally, we will explore new ways to further integrate Fast Play and other digital gaming options to sustain momentum throughout the holiday season.
Kentucky Lottery
Kansas’ holiday (and winter) lineup included eight games: two each at $5, $10 and $20, and one each at $1 and $2. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
Our $20 Jackpot Frost ticket achieved the highest sales among all $20 holiday games in both FY24 and FY25. It surpassed the performance of last year’s comparable ticket, When It’s Gold Outside, by a significant 10%.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
This year, we launched our holiday games November 7 instead of our traditional mid-October, and aligned our advertising campaign accordingly. While historical launches occurred in October, major advertising efforts typically began after Thanksgiving. We anticipated that an earlier advertising push would stimulate ticket sales, however, we found that not to be the case. Additionally, to streamline our game releases, we consolidated our typical December winter game launch with the November holiday launch, eliminating the separate December release.
We also introduced a new concept this year: a $20 Holiday Gift Pack. Designed to resemble a greeting card, the 4-inch-by-8-inch ticket unfolded to reveal an 8-inch-by-8-inch play area featuring four distinct games; every ticket was a winner. This ticket, however, did not meet our sales targets, despite its novelty and positive reception in focus groups.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
As part of our standard holiday offerings, we implemented a traditional second-chance promotion to bolster scratch-off game sales. We engaged with new social media influencers who spoke to incorporating our holiday games into their family traditions and for gift ideas. This included Louisville native and ESPN reporter Katie George. We sponsored a “decorate your store” contest for our retailers; the top prize went to the retailer who came up with the display pictured here.
Other holiday games:
We introduced holiday/winter-themed offerings within our Fast Play and Instant Play portfolios, but did not implement a cross-play promotional strategy, since our main advertising messaging was gifting scratch-offs.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
We will revert to an October launch and reinstate the December launch in our game schedule. We will consider advertising campaign positioning for the earlier launch, that our scratch-offs make great gifts, even for yourself to encourage play by core and lapsed players before the holidays. Furthermore, building on the success of our $2 Betty Boop game in FY24, we are exploring the incorporation of a licensed property within our FY26 holiday game lineup.
Loto-Québec
Loto-Québec’s holiday lineup included seven games: two at $3 and one each at $2, $5, $10, $15 and $25. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
Our Célébration ticket, now in its 36th year, has once again broken sales records. After experiencing inventory shortages in recent years, we increased the number of printed tickets by 20%, resulting in a 12% boost in sales. An outstanding achievement by our field sales team, which implemented innovative promotions to ensure the ticket reached the hands of the majority of Quebecers.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
Two products launched for holiday 2023 were available in a holiday edition while maintaining their regular version on the market. This led to significant cannibalization of the regular products in these brands, which is why we made slight adjustments to our strategy this year. Instead of launching a $3 Bingo Holiday Edition, we introduced a holiday version of a well-known extended play game among our players – one that is not part of our core games. Additionally, we replaced the $5 Crossword with a holiday edition of another core game, but one that is not typically available at the $5 price point in its regular version. Overall, the results were positive, generating additional sales while avoiding any cannibalization of the regular product categories.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
We utilized the same recipe as last year in terms of campaigns: In-store POS materials (poster, header, booth screen); advertising on our web platforms and consumer displays; re-airing of last year’s 30-sec TV commercial (TV and web); stingray radio campaign; and social media content.
Other holiday games:
Our goal is to encourage cross-play among our casual holiday players who purchase tickets at retail locations by indicating on the ticket that these products are also available online. To achieve this, all our core products are replicated as eInstant holiday versions. As part of that holiday commercialization strategy, we enhanced our Holiday Edition online scratch ticket collection with a refreshed offering. This year, we introduced a new $5 Mots cachés Édition des fêtes, complementing the existing $2 version. Additionally, Jeu de mots Édition des fêtes was revamped to maximize player appeal and engagement. These strategic additions and improvements led to a 15% increase in sales compared to last year.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
This year, we introduced a licensed product, ELF which received a positive response from a key target audience: 25- to 34-year-olds. We plan to renew the use of a strong Christmas license next year to generate interest among this category of players.
Louisiana Lottery
Louisiana’s holiday lineup included three games: one each at $1, $2 and $5. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
All of them were successful. The $1 Holiday Jingle indexed at 145; with a prize payout of 66%, it was loaded with $500 top prizes. The $2 More Jingle indexed at 132, with a prize payout of 67.5%. The $5 Jingle All The Way indexed at 120, with a prize payout of 69%.
In addition to the family, we also launched a seasonal/holiday game in August, $2 Lucky 13 Seasons, with pulsed ticket art. The game began with a Halloween theme featuring four spooky scenes with fluorescent orange ink. The second pulse, Feathers, included a turkey as the main graphic on the ticket and fluorescent orange ink; it debuted mid-October, just in time for Thanksgiving. The third pulse, Snowflakes, hit the market the last week of November featuring fluorescent blue ink with snowflakes. Lucky 13 Seasons was a big hit with retailers and players, indexing at an impressive 165.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
The tagline we used for the family of holiday games was “It’s All About the Jingle.” To promote conversations around holiday scratch-offs, the Lottery hosted a weekday, statewide radio listener call-in promotion coinciding with a paid radio and TV advertising campaign that included streaming on Pandora and Spotify. DJs promoted the games as great gift ideas with listeners calling in with their favorite holiday song for a chance to win prize packs, including a special “jingle” long-sleeved T-shirt and coffee tumbler along with other Lottery-branded surprises.
Following the radio campaign, we hosted a Facebook timeline promotion December 2-15. Players posted up to a 30-sec video of themselves singing their favorite holiday jingle as a comment on promotional post for a chance to win a holiday prize package. The promotion was backed by a social media influencer campaign on Instagram with two Louisiana lifestyle influencers creating custom content about the Lottery’s holiday game offerings and using scratch-offs for gift-giving during the holidays. We tapped Kortlynn Jenae @kortlynnjenae who hails from New Orleans; with over 16,000 followers, she posts about local food, fashion and events. Marlo Rodrigue Veillon @marloveillon, who hails from South Louisiana, posts about local lifestyle interests. Content from these two trendsetters was amplified across Facebook for added exposure and engagement. The emerging market actively seeks product recommendations from trusted influencers on social media. The unique ways that scratch-offs can be used around the holiday games made for the perfect content springboard for our testing out this new marketing tactic.
In addition to social media and radio, television and YouTube pre-roll video ads, online banner ads and digital outdoor ads promoted the family of holiday scratch-offs. Finally, a play center banner and Player Advertising Display spot highlighted game availability at retail.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
The $1 game continues to be a holiday hit. Players like the ease and inexpensive way they can incorporate it into their holiday festivities, and the loaded theme on this game means more meaningful winner experiences.