Published February 18, 2025
Maryland Lottery
Maryland’s holiday lineup included six games: one each at $1, $2, $3, $5, $10 and $20. There was also a winter-themed $1 game. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
Our $1 ticket strategy was the most successful element of our 2024 holiday ticket launch. We had two $1 games: Gift Tag Cash was a die-cut ticket launched in October with the rest of our holiday ticket lineup; we added Snowflake Cash, a winter-themed game, with a soft launch in November. This two-game approach significantly boosted performance, with 10-week holiday $1 game validations increasing by 33% compared to 2023. Another successful ticket was our $5 Holiday Luck Doubler, which featured two scenes and achieved an impressive 10-week index of 123. Our $3 Peppermint Payout continues to outperform other $3 tickets, particularly through March. Our goal was to maintain player interest and extend sales beyond the immediate holiday season. It stays in the field longer than our other holiday games, and we have seen consistently strong performance throughout the extended sales period.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
As noted, we introduced two $1 holiday games instead of our usual single offering, with the goal of increasing player engagement and sales during the holiday season.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
We supported our holiday tickets and second-chance promotion with a statewide advertising campaign that ran from mid-November through December 24. The campaign included TV, online video, radio, streaming audio, out-of-home, standard and rich media banners, social media and printed and digital point-of-sale materials. The second-chance promotion ran via our My Lottery Rewards player loyalty platform and included all of the holiday scratch-offs and three holiday-themed Fast Play games. Non-winning holiday scratch-offs and all holiday Fast Play tickets sold during the promotion period were eligible for entry. There were 12 weekly drawings from October 29 through January 16. Each of the 12 drawings awarded five $5,000 prizes, and the drawings on December 5 and January 16 each also awarded one $100,000 prize. This cross-promotion leveraged the popularity of both scratch-offs and Fast Play to increase player engagement and excitement during the holiday season.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
Launching two visually distinct $1 games demonstrated a significant increase in sales. We will explore expanding this strategy for future holiday seasons. We also learned there is a customer demand for scented tickets. The absence of scented tickets this year was a significant point of feedback from customers, and we will prioritize the inclusion of a scented ticket in our holiday game offerings next season.
Massachusetts Lottery
Massachusetts’ holiday lineup included six games: two each at $2 and $10, and one each at $1 and $5. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
Holiday-themed $10 Blowout games continue to be our most popular offering of the season, capturing core players and gift givers alike.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
Our Second Chance Holiday Promotion gave Mass Lottery Player Account members the opportunity to enter non-winning holiday tickets into a cash drawing for prizes ranging from $500 to $10,000. New this year, all tickets entered by November 18 were eligible for an Early Bird Drawing that awarded 250 $100 prizes. To maintain interest in the games into the New Year, we extended the entry period for the primary drawing to February 3.
Our in-house creative team produced an assortment of promotional videos for our holiday instant tickets. All were utilized on social media platforms, and one was featured in our paid broadcast and connected TV campaign. All actors and voice talent are Mass Lottery employees.
Other holiday games:
For draw and monitor games, we brought back our Holiday Word$ promotion that we first ran in 2021. For a three-week period, a new holiday-themed keyword was printed on all draw and monitor game tickets. Players could enter once each day by going to the Mass Lottery website and typing in the keyword. For each of the three weeks of the promotion, one $10,000 winner and ten $500 winners were selected from all eligible entries. Winners were announced live each week on Facebook and YouTube.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
We continue to evaluate prize structures and print quantities to effectively manage our holiday inventory.
Michigan Lottery
Michigan’s holiday lineup included four games: one each at $1, $2, $5 and $10. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
Performance wise, our $1 game, Gift Tag Greetings and $10 The Most Wonderful Time of the Year were solid games. Both indexed well above average for 13 weeks, at 130 and 119, respectively.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
This year, we launched several exciting promotional activities to engage our players and retailers. One of our highlights was the Holiday Let’s Play Giveaway! Players who purchased and scanned a holiday game received an entry into our monthly drawing for a chance to win a $5,000 grand prize or one of 50 prizes of $100 in online credit.
We also encouraged retailers to elevate their holiday displays with creativity and festive flair, giving them the opportunity to enter a contest to be awarded a book of $1 instant game tickets, valued at $300, and other prizes. This promotion started November 1; independent retailers could take a photo of their display and submit it at michiganlottery.com/retailers by December 1. The Michigan Lottery selected eight finalists, one from each region, to go head-to-head in a social media poll. Based on the poll results, one grand prize winner was selected. Seven other finalists were awarded 50 $1 promotional instant game tickets. This garnered a lot of attention and friendly competition.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
We’re looking to bring more variety and excitement to our holiday lineup this year. To shake things up, we’re testing a few new games, including a $10 Full of $500s game, a proven favorite in other markets. With better odds of winning $500, this game could be a great way to give players a little extra cash during the holiday season. We’re also exploring something completely new – a licensed property game. This would be a first for us, and we’re thrilled about the possibilities it could bring!
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Missouri Lottery
Missouri’s holiday lineup included six games: each at $1, $2, $3, $5, $10 and $20. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
Missouri’s highest selling holiday ticket was at the $20 price point again this year, accounting for more than 35% of holiday Scratchers sales. The $20 Holiday Ice featured Sparkle printing technology, which elevated its festive and wintry design to really grab players’ attention. The game also provided exceptional play value, including bonus play spots and additional play on the reverse side.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
The Holiday Adventure second-chance promotion offered My Lottery Players Club members the chance to win taxes-paid adventure trips of their own design, along with cash and merchandise prizes. The promotion received 2.8 million entries into the monthly drawings and 28 million entries into the weekly drawings – which translated to more than $28 million worth of holiday Scratchers and draw games tickets entered.
Our main communications tools included point-of-sale materials, organic social media posts and holiday-themed loyalty Rewards. While our limited advertising budget did not provide for paid support specific to our holiday games and promotion, we did advertise a more general theme of Lottery as Gifts, which highlighted both Scratchers as Gifts and Draw Games as Gifts coupons for holiday gift-giving.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
The insights gleaned through the annual survey of loyalty club members continues to shape our game selections, as we work to create the best ticket mix possible for our players each holiday season. Added play options and specialized printing techniques test and perform well, so they will continue to be a consideration for future holiday games. We also continue to see positive results by extending the holiday ticket purchase into second-chance promotional opportunities for our players.
Montana Lottery
Montana’s holiday lineup included four games: two at $1 and one each at $2 and $5. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
We had record sellout on all four games. Our best performer was actually the $5 When It’s Gold Outside; at this writing it is going to sell out one month earlier than planned. This game features gold platinum paper stock and seemed to resonate with players.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
This year we eliminated our media buys on traditional TV and radio, and our advertising spend was on digital media and social platforms. Yet we increased sell-through by 14% year over year. Digital and social content is created in-house and with our ad agency. Digital is used on our ITVM vending machines, player advertising displays and various other platforms; social is primarily Facebook and Instagram, and we also pay for boosts. We also have content on Spotify.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
Cutting traditional media buys had no impact on sales, thus increasing our bottom line and profit margins.
Nebraska Lottery
Nebraska’s holiday lineup included three games: one each at $1, $5 and $10. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
Lucky Star 10X at our $5 price point was our most successful holiday ticket. This game had the highest sales of the three holiday games this year, a family with nearly identical graphics, ticket attributes and playstyle.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
We discontinued the $20 holiday game and bumped up the print quantity of our $10 and $5 games. The goal with the changes was to minimize the disruption to our $20 category and ensure that sales were maximized at the other price points. We also updated the top prizes of our $5 and $10 holiday games to be in line with other scratch games with the goal to attract more core players and jackpot chasers.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
Our key promotional activity for holiday games during this season was the Yuletide Ride promotion, where players could enter non-winning Lucky Star scratch tickets for a chance to win a 2024 Ford Bronco 4-door 4x4 or five $1,000 prizes. And the Twice as Nice social media giveaway gave players the chance to enter to win $100 in Nebraska Lottery holiday scratch tickets for themselves, and $100 in tickets for a friend.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
We learned that standard top prize holiday games are favorable to our players compared to lower or “Frenzy” type games. Easy playstyles, active bonuses, multipliers and exciting second-chance prizes deliver results.
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New Jersey Lottery
New Jersey’s holiday lineup included four games: one each at $1, $2, $5 and $10. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
We had a very successful holiday season this year leading up to a near-record sales week for scratch-offs during Christmas. While our holiday games launched in November ahead of the holiday season and were the flagship of our campaign, we saw the greatest success from a new $25 game, Millionaire Maker, which was launched in December. This ticket did not have a holiday theme but experienced fantastic sales boosted by the gift giving season.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
Our holiday campaign theme this year was “Holiday Cheer Made From Scratch.” The campaign ran from November 25 to December 24 and included a variety of touch points: broadcast, cable and streaming TV; New Jersey and New York radio stations, plus Spotify and Pandora; billboards (static and digital); digital ad placements (site specific and programmatic), and social media (Meta and Snap). As always we had extensive POS materials for our retailers.
Other holiday games:
A Fast Play ticket with a holiday theme was also launched in December, $5 Merry Money Match. It was the best-selling $5 Fast Play Progressive game throughout the holiday season.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
While we don’t have any notable learnings coming out of holiday 2024, we will continue to launch holiday scratch-offs games at the $1, $2, $5 and $10 price points to promote gift giving opportunities and lead the holiday marketing campaign.
New Mexico Lottery
New Mexico’s holiday lineup included four games: one each at $1, $2, $3 and $5. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
All four New Mexico Lottery Scratchers sold out of the warehouse by the end of the holiday season, so we think they were all a yuletide success. Even if we narrow it down, it’s a toss-up between 12 Days of Christmas ($3) and The Most Wonderful Time of the Year ($5). Not only did they sell out of the warehouse by Christmas, but players redeemed prizes at a very high rate. The settlement rate on these games is already at 75% - 85%.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
It’s always a challenge to launch Christmas before Halloween (our holiday tickets always launch in early October). Although many big retailers are launching holiday products in October, it still may have the stigma of being early. So we really try to wait to promote the holiday season until after Thanksgiving. A few years ago, we began introducing second-chance promotions for the holiday Scratchers that give us the opportunity to promote the games – without promoting the holidays before Halloween. The early messages focused on “Holiday Scratchers are Coming to Town” messaging. Then, after Thanksgiving, we reminded players that holiday Scratchers make great gifts to ages 18 and older with a “Have Yourself a Merry Little Scratcher” campaign. The second-chance promotion included three drawings. In each drawing, 10 players won $1,000, for a total of 30 winners.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
We really felt like we had the perfect holiday Scratcher strategy in 2024 and do not plan to change it. The launch timing was just right in early October; we’ve done this for a very long time to make sure they have plenty of time to sell out before the holidays are over. We ordered the perfect quantities of tickets, also ensuring sellout by Christmas. Notably, none of the games had huge top prizes. The top prize in the $1 game is only $25. This allowed for two $25 winners per pack, which made a nice, fun gift. The $2 game was loaded with $500 top prizes. The $3 game had $5,000 top prizes, and the $10 had $10,000 top prizes. These represented much smaller prizes than our typical price points but it did not discourage players from buying the holiday games.
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New York Lottery
New York’s holiday lineup included three games: one each at $2, $5 and $10. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
$10 $1,000,000 Holiday Cash – players enjoy playing for the top prize, and the game is profitable.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
The only notable changes were slightly reduced order quantities; games were out of market in early January after a November 5 launch..
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
There was an integrated marketing campaign across traditional and digital media throughout the holiday season, as well as a Second Chance program with drawings for November and December entries.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
We learned that players are accepting of seasonal games having a bit more time in market before launching new games.
North Carolina Education Lottery
North Carolina’s holiday lineup included six games: one each at $1, $2, $3, $5, $10 and $20. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
We launched our holiday tickets this year as a multiplier family, and the whole family performed exceptionally well. We are particularly impressed with the $1 to $5 price points, as those games outperformed last year’s versions. At this time, sales of our holiday games increased 6% year over year. North Carolina lottery players love our multiplier games, and they consistently rank as our most popular offerings. Add second-chance offerings and the support of fun advertising and marketing campaigns, and you get a formula for a successful year.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
We supported our holiday games with a positive marketing campaign, a second-chance opportunity for players, a fun social media promotion, and a brand-new gift responsibility campaign. POS in stores and our advertising campaign all carried the same theme: GIFT ENDLESS JOY.
Players who purchased any of our six holiday scratch-offs could enter them into the second-chance drawing, which had a top prize $250,000; the promotion attracted 39 million entries. For our social media campaign, we conducted a scavenger hunt-style promotion to support the scratch-off games. It featured eight hidden clue posts that the player could find to collect clues. The clues spelled out a word that players then could share in the comment section of a promotion post for entry in a social media drawing to win scratch-offs. We selected ten total winners, five from Facebook and five from Instagram. The clues also spelled out a promo code the player could enter on our Lucke-Rewards platform to receive 250 points to use in Lucke-Rewards drawings.
We have an annual gift responsibly campaign under the banner Gift Smart. This year, with a nod to the toy drives done by the Massachusetts and Connecticut lotteries, we launched a new gift responsibly campaign with a holiday school supply drive. We had several goals: to increase awareness that lottery tickets are not appropriate holiday gifts for children, with a positive way to talk about risks of youth gambling and an engaging way to encourage responsible play and gifting; to raise the profile of the lottery’s civic spirit and support of public education in each corner of our state; and to establish an annual gift responsibility holiday tradition. Each of our six claim centers accepted donations of school supplies. Players who contributed got entries into January drawings to win free scratch-offs. The supplies collected went to local charities and local education groups in each region of our state that provide free school supplies to teachers.
Other holiday games:
We launched holiday-themed eInstant games for the first time and brought back holiday Fast Play games. Players who like eInstants could play Merry Money Frenzy in November and Holiday Haus in December. The Fast Play holiday game lineup featured a $2 Merry Money game, a $5 Holiday Luck game, and a $10 Holiday Bonus game. Having holiday-themed games with scratch-offs, Fast Play games, and eInstants gave us the opportunity for cross promotions. We ran a points multiplier cross promotion campaign on our loyalty platform, Lucke-Rewards. During the month of December, players received 2X Lucke-Rewards points for every holiday game entered.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
Strong game themes, like multiplier and loaded, combined with the holiday look and feel, led to increased sales of holiday tickets. We will keep this in mind when developing holiday games next year.
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Ohio Lottery
Ohio’s holiday lineup included six games: one each at $1, $2, $5, $10, $20 and $30. There were also three additional seasonal games. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
$1 Holiday Cash is the standout among holiday scratch-offs; it has been a staple of Ohio Lottery holiday scratch-offs since 1986. A fun, economical and a popular stocking stuffer, Holiday Cash sales were up 20% from last year, or more than $2.09 million. A total of 12.4 million Holiday Cash tickets were sold, the most among this year’s release of holiday scratch-offs. In addition, our regular November release of six new scratch-off games included three with holiday/winter themes ($1 Stockings Stuffed with $50s, $2 ELF and $10 Winter Fun). They blended well with the October release of holiday scratch-offs.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
The $30 holiday game is a fairly new addition; this was our second year at this price point.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
For our holiday ad campaign, we produced Ohio Lottery Holidaze, a series of three offbeat, humorous 30-second TV spots. The first spot focused on the convenience of holiday scratch-offs as party gifts; a second on $10 Home for the Holidays and $20 Merry Money. The third spot focused on the multiplier feature of the $30 Holiday Bonus Millions, and encouraged play of all six holiday games. Retailers received holiday point of sale, including two posters – one showcasing all six games, the other promoting the holiday second-chance promotion.
Cash is king, especially during the holiday season when everyone desires it the most. The Holiday Multiplier Second Chance Promotion provided an automatic entry for all non-winning holiday scratch-offs entered into MyLotto Rewards from October 8 through January 6. This exclusive cash promotion featured six separate drawings corresponding to each ticket price point, with top prizes ranging from $1,000 to $30,000; it offered a total of $200,000 in prizes. Each drawing’s grand prize served as an incentive for participants to consider holiday tickets at a higher price point for potentially bigger rewards; players received one entry for each $1 in value provided by their holiday ticket entry. Players were encouraged to “bundle” their play, entering each of the six holiday games. Each bundle provided one entry into one of a series of separate drawings, known as the Holiday Bonus Promotion, for a chance to win $200 in digital Lottery Cash. These changes to our promotional strategy were well received by our players. Year-over-year participation in our holiday second-chance promotion increased 21%, totaling more than $44 million in non-winning holiday scratch-off tickets. In addition, we had nearly 95,000 complete bundles worth about $6.5 million.
Other holiday games:
We released three holiday-themed EZPLAY Games throughout the month of November: $1 Santa’s Snowball, $10 Blustery Bucks and $2 ELF. From November 20 to January 18, we encouraged play of the $2 ELF scratch-off and EZPLAY games by providing MyLotto Rewards members with a chance to win $25 automatically with each non-winning ticket entered into our loyalty program. Players were notified of their win though a pop-up message.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
As our higher price points continue to show increases in sales, we saw a slight drop in sales for our holiday games. Overall, the whole product line had an increase in sales throughout the holiday season. We will have to take a look at our holiday print quantities, especially now that we have three $50 games on sale. We expect that higher price point games will continue their upward sales trend.
From a marketing perspective, we learned that offering many different layers to the promotional mix can increase participation and engagement. By having drawings at each price point and across all price points, it provides players with different buying strategies throughout the holiday sales cycle. For the next holiday season, we’d like to add personalized, limited time offers on singular products or price points to stimulate sales on specific days or weeks. And we may consider broadening the holiday message to give permission to our players to enjoy more scratch-off themes during this critical sales period.
Oklahoma Lottery
Oklahoma’s holiday lineup included two games: one each at $2 and $5. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
This year, our $5 Merry Multiplier was by far the more successful. This was only our second year to do a holiday ticket at that price point and it performed even better (2.8% more tickets) than the previous year. It was quite successful due to great design and a lot of awareness advertising.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
In general, we have always loaded holiday games with more low-tier wins to make sure players are getting as many wins as possible during the holidays. This seems to work very well, especially since so many of these tickets are given as gifts. For the $5 ticket, we run a very low quantity in the game so that it will only last about 10 weeks, and that has worked well. This year we offered a $2 holiday Scratcher instead of a $1 game. Our $2 category is always struggling, so we thought it might be an opportunity to make a little more money by utilizing a popular buying period. We thought if our normal $1 holiday buyers still came out in droves, they could buy that $2 option or they would just buy our other $1 options. We quickly saw that those buyers stuck with their $1 games. So while our $2 holiday Scratcher did not perform well at all, the other $1 games soared. It’s nice to know more about our buyers in that regard and we’ll definitely take that into consideration for next year.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
This year we engaged a lot of social media influencers to help us spread the awareness of the holiday games. This was extremely popular and we received a ton of positive feedback and a great amount of engagement.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
Every year we learn a bit more and that is always great to take forward. We are considering a $10 option next year as well.
Ontario Lottery & Gaming
Ontario’s holiday lineup included seven games: two each at $3 and $5, and one each at $2, $10 and $20. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
$20 Instant Gift Pack was the top performer this year, achieving record sales at $27 million, which is the highest of this year’s holiday products. This product is designed for gift-giving, and we saw great demand for these Gift Packs at retail during the holidays.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
For the $20 Instant Gift Pack, the prize structure was updated with an increased number of multiple wins across the pack, improving the player experience by allowing a player to look forward to more potential wins and more value across the whole pack.
We also removed holiday tickets from the market earlier than in past years – at the end of December or the first week of January, as opposed to mid-January in prior years. This adjustment was implemented to accommodate new ticket launches in January, thereby directing retailers’ focus towards activating these new tickets and encouraging players to select them.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
To support the holiday games, a 4.5-week media campaign called “Stuffed with Possibilities” ran from November 25 to December 24. This campaign spanned linear TV, print, out of home placements, digital display, search, social, influencers, power walls, retail POS, and owned assets (OLG.ca, newsletters, etc.). In addition, there were secondary assets that featured message focus on the “Winner in every pack” proposition with the Instant Gift Pack. Overall, this campaign achieved a net recall of 40%.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
There were positive sales results, player feedback and retailer feedback on the $20 Gift Pack with the guaranteed winner in every pack proposition. Therefore, this strategy will continue for next season. As a result of softness with the $10 holiday national ticket, OLG will not continue with this ticket next season. Instead, we will launch a new $10 regional instant ticket that will be advent-calendar themed, which is inspired by player feedback in wanting to see this ticket concept brought back. Order quantities across all price points will be optimized to increase overall sell-through percentages.
Oregon Lottery
Oregon’s holiday lineup included six games: one each at $1, $2, $5, $10, $20 and $30. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
Our $30 Merry & Bright indexed higher than any of the other price points. While this game was marketed with all holiday games, the introduction of this new price point resonated with our players and contributed to its success.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
We launched an additional game this year with the introduction of the $30 price point. Launching the $30 ticket during this timeframe gave us the opportunity to advertise the new price point with our holiday games.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
As we have over the past several years, we ran multi-channel marketing and advertising promoting Oregon Lottery Scratch-its as great holiday gifts. “Engineered for Cheer” sought to cut through traditional “red, green, snowmen, and reindeer” advertising that dominates traditional and digital channels in December. This is always an incredibly high engagement time of year, as many new players try our games for the first time or many of our lighter players participate over the holiday season. For example, we saw a 300% increase over our weekly average in entries to our Second Chance game the final week of the year.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
The $1 and $2 holiday games did not perform as well when compared to the rest of the games in the lineup. We will be removing the $1 holiday game next year due to its under-performance and limited time in market.
Rhode Island Lottery
Rhode Island’s holiday lineup included four games: one each at $1, $2, $5 and $10. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
All price points sold well but the $10 was the best when compared to previous years.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
We did offer a holiday family this year, and used a continuous scene design, which is not our typical approach for a family of games. And because we wanted to maintain focus on our 50th anniversary second chance promotion (which ran almost all year, through December 2), we decided not to do a holiday second chance this year. That didn’t appear to negatively impact sales, but we did have some customer complaints, so more than likely it will be back next year.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
We do the standard retail POS, plus bus, billboard, TV, radio and digital advertising. Our big event each year is Black Friday at Rhode Island Lottery headquarters. We invite players to come and purchase $20 of our holiday instant games, prepackaged in a greeting card. With each $20 greeting card purchase, they can pick a gift tag and reveal a prize/gift for themselves. The prizes include instant tickets, branded merchandise, prizes provided by the various partners we work with over the year, and event tickets. Our Black Friday event has grown so much that this year we set up a heated tent outside our office to accommodate all the prizes and people. That also gave us space to invite one of our retailers to come and hand out coupons, free cookies and their own branded merchandise. Additionally, since it was our 50th anniversary and we still had some giveaway items from years ago in our warehouse, we set up a “freebie” table that players could help themselves to. Last, but not least, we invited a TV/radio personality/social media influencer who we’ve worked with on various campaigns to come during our busiest time to chat with players and let them know about some of our upcoming promotions, as well as post videos on social media encouraging people to stop by.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
Sales were a little stronger this year when compared to previous year’s holiday sales, so we’re leaning towards another family of games approach.
South Carolina Education Lottery
South Carolina’s holiday lineup included four games: one each at $1, $2, $5 and $10. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
Our $5 ticket, Golden Rings, indexed at 153. It was the top selling $5 ticket among any games launched in the first half of FY25. That was probably due to the overall product mix at the time of the launch. We had three second-chance opportunities and another rewards-themed ticket in-market that were waning, so players were ready for a new ticket and it held strong for a while.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
We did not support our holiday launch with any second-chance drawing or promotion beyond a typical monthly launch. We used digital billboards and other digital assets (web, social, PIDs).
Major lessons learned in 2024:
We are considering incorporating all four price points into a single second-chance promotion next year to drive new player acquisition.
South Dakota Lottery
South Dakota’s holiday lineup included three games: one each at $1, $2 and $5. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
Our $5 Merry Money ticket stood to our players thanks in part to its platinum foil print feature. This eye-catching also featured a $15,000 top prize. The $1 Gift Tag Cash and $2 Peppermint were also successful holiday scratch tickets. We always find a lot of success with our $1 and $2 games during the holidays because these are often given as gifts. The Gift Tag Cash theme played very well into this.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
Our holiday campaign is typically our largest of the year, and this year was no different. We utilized a new television ad, and featured a new radio spot, plus digital display ads and paid social media posts.
We also continued to spread “Jolly Good Fun” with our South Dakota Lottery branded Santa. The Good Fun Santa traveled to select retailers and bars in the area to give away scratch tickets to adults. The Good Fun Santa even made a trip to Mount Rushmore!
Major lessons learned in 2024:
We’ve found some formulas that work for us, and we look forward to continuing this positive momentum. A big part of that is our campaign theme Jolly Good Fun – it remains really effective with South Dakotans. We were also happy to take part in the National Council on Problem Gambling’s Gift Responsibly campaign, and were really pleased with some of the engagements rates we garnered through our Players Club messaging.
Texas Lottery
Texas’ holiday lineup included four games: one each at $1, $3, $5 and $10. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
Our $5 25 Days of Winnings would be considered the top performing holiday scratch ticket game. The game has a 12-week index of 92 and a top sales week of $2,542,430.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
The holiday scratch tickets were supported by a comprehensive ad campaign including radio, digital video, social, out of home and point of sale at 14,000+ retailers across the state. Our ongoing iHeart Media partnership provided on-air DJ chatter as well as strong market by market radio support. Additionally, we had an on-site promotion at one of the holiday’s biggest events, the iHeart Jingle Ball with Meghan Trainor, Jason Derulo and the biggest music artists.
During a busy time of the year, we leveraged our partnerships with the Dallas Cowboys, Houston Texans, San Antonio Spurs, Houston Rockets, and the Texas Longhorns to remind Texans to give holiday scratch tickets! The creative was also key to our success. Our 2023 holiday radio campaign, which featured the catchy jingle “Fa La La La La La Lot of Cash,” included several versions, with the “Nose Hair Trimmer” spot winning the NASPL Award for Best Instant Radio Campaign. Due to the popularity of that campaign, we chose to run it again in-market for both social and digital video.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
Inventory levels remain high in mid-January with sell-throughs ranging from 61.16% - 69.68%. Print quantities will be reviewed for FY26 to ensure a higher sell-through at the end of the holiday season.
Washington's Lottery
Washington’s holiday lineup included four games: Two at $1 and one each at $5, $10 and $20. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
$5 Minty Money because of the sell through and the positive feedback on the peppermint scent.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
Our events staff ran promotions at our Tacoma and Alderwood mall kiosks over the holidays. On a Saturday at each mall, players could purchase holiday scratch tickets for a chance to win up to $500 in an end-of-day drawing at each location. A purchase of $10 would receive one entry; a $20 purchase would provide two entries and a wheel spin; the prize wheel offered small prizes and additional drawing entries. Players did not need to be present to win the drawing, which offered one $500 prize, two $250 prizes and one $100 prize.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
We are looking at not launching a $20 game in 2025, and may launch a $2 or two $5. The $20 sales were very soft this year.
Western Canada Lottery
WCLC’s holiday lineup included 11 games: two each at $2, $5 and $10, plus one each at $1, $3, $4, $20 and $30. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
Our most successful holiday tickets were $30 A Gift For You and $5 Elf. We experienced gains across a few additional tickets as well. A Gift For You had strong sales throughout the holidays as well as additional sales into Q4, as the gifting theme is not exclusive to the holiday period. Elf was our top performing $5 holiday offering. The theme of the ticket had widespread appeal and combined with fun advertising led to successful performance.
Changes for the 2024 holiday season:
We made a change to the $1 offering this year, going from two to just one ticket. We noticed that our sell through was better as well as our index. We didn’t see it in the sales as much due to the difference in two tickets up against one. In terms of order quantity, 2 million tickets were ordered the previous year, and 1.75 million this year.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
Our campaign aim was to target gift givers of legal age in the WCLC market between December 2 and 25 through social, video, out of home and digital placements. Out of home placements included contextual out of home in malls and elevators. Some of our tag lines included “Scratch everyone off your nice list,” “Tis the season to Scratch & Win,” and “Win The Holidays.” Note that we promoted only Scratch & Win tickets, but not all the tickets were holiday-themed. For example, we also promoted our $100 Ultimate ticket, a great gift to give and get!
Major lessons learned in 2024:
Utilizing the Win The Holidays platform for a second year helped us support the overall goal of our products during the holiday season. We steered away from niche offerings and stuck to a more traditional lineup with widespread appeal. We plan to continue this trend into F26.
Wisconsin Lottery
Wisconsin’s holiday lineup included six games: one each at $1, $3, $5, $10, $15 and $20. A $2 winter game was added closer to the holidays. View the games in our ticket gallery.
Most successful game(s):
Our $1 Gnome for the Holidays ticket with four whimsical scenes was one of our top sellers this holiday season, selling out in seven weeks. With crosswords being a favorite playstyle in Wisconsin, our $3 Candy Cane Crossword ticket was also successful, selling out in eight weeks.
Holiday campaigns and promotions:
Using strategies that have been successful in previous years, we utilized TV and radio advertising, POS, OOH, and social posts. We also offered a short term incentive to our retailers based on ticket validations. For every five validations of our $5, $10 and $20 tickets, the store received an entry into a drawing to win two Wisconsin Lottery “ugly sweaters,” which have been very popular with our retailers.
Other holiday games:
2024 was the 15th year we have offered a $5 Holly Jolly Raffle. The limited time, limited quantity game has grown in popularity during its lifespan to feature 150,000 available tickets. This year we sold all 150,000 raffle tickets in 35 days.
Major lessons learned in 2024:
We evaluate our holiday order quantities yearly to determine if any changes need to be made for the upcoming year. We strive to find the perfect amount, so we have enough on hand, but also not too much.