Spreading the Good Word - Massachusetts to Wyoming
- Insights Online
- 3 hours ago
- 23 min read
By NASPL Insights
Published April 22, 2025
Massachusetts State Lottery
The Massachusetts State Lottery works to support the communities and residents of the Commonwealth every day. Each year, the Lottery returns net profits to the Commonwealth for distribution of essential unrestricted local aid to all 351 cities and towns. Lottery funds are not earmarked for any specific programs, allowing cities and towns to choose how they would like to allocate their funds. Examples of how these funds are utilized include public safety staffing and equipment, snow removal, local road improvements, school services, programs for seniors, and parks and recreation projects.
Furthering our commitment to our cities and towns, the Lottery engages in strategic partnerships to strengthen awareness of this mission. For the last two decades, we have partnered with numerous professional and collegiate sports teams to highlight our contributions to the communities we serve and to celebrate those who are making a difference in their communities. These partnerships are amplified through our partner’s social media accounts and through earned media at the local level.
Currently, the Lottery is partnering with the NHL’s Boston Bruins on the Community All-Star presented by the Massachusetts State Lottery, where honorees are recognized during each home game of the 2024-2025 season. As part of this partnership, the Lottery has tables during select dates and our displays include beneficiary messaging and signage which highlights the Lottery dollars that go back into the community through unrestricted local aid.
This year, we began a new partnership with Major League Rugby’s New England Free Jacks, reaching a new audience with our beneficiary messaging. During the 2025 season, we recognize 16 individuals who have made significant and positive impacts on their communities by presenting the Impact Free Jack award on the field during each of the team’s home games. Similarly, the Lottery will soon begin our partnership with the Cape Cod Baseball League for the 2025 season, to recognize military personnel and first responders as part of the MA State Lottery Hero of The Game presentation.
Other professional sports partnerships include sponsoring the NBA’s Boston Celtics Heroes Among Us and the American Hockey League’s Springfield Thunderbird’s Hometown Salute. We have also found success in partnering with athletics at local colleges and universities athletics, including the current Boston College Hometown Hero and previously the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Community Salute.
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Missouri Lottery
One hundred percent of Missouri Lottery proceeds are earmarked for public education. Beyond our “Play It Forward” taglines, we have also implemented a variety of other strategies to communicate to players how every Missouri Lottery ticket helps fund education.
“Winning” Campaign. We recently launched a media campaign featuring “Mia,” our super cheerful Missouri Lottery Winnings Desk employee. Mia happily greets winners, writes checks for their ginormous wins and prepares thank-you notes by hand for each and every one of our players who have helped us send $8.4 billion to the state and public education. The campaign features television, radio, streaming audio and billboards.
Contributions Flyers for Retailers. Individualized flyers allow our retailers to show their customers how lottery sales at that specific location help to “Play It Forward” for public education in Missouri. Flyers are distributed by LSRs annually, and they are also available for download at any time on the retailer portal website.
County Education Maps. Interactive maps on our website allow players to select any county in the state to see exactly how lottery proceeds have gone to work in their community. The breakdown includes the schools or school districts benefited, program descriptions and the total amount of lottery proceeds expended for each. To drive more traffic and interaction with these maps, we are now holding a weekly contest on social media to further engage players. Each week, a different county is highlighted and players refer to the map to tell us an education program that benefited in that designated county. Everyone who comments is then entered into a drawing for a lottery t-shirt.
Screen Messaging. Our statewide ESMM program has a dedicated slide for beneficiary awareness, our Keno monitors display a banner during the drawing results screen, and a beneficiary slide rotates on a continual basis on our pull-tabs dispensers.
Social Celebrations for Annual Fiscal Year Totals. Last fall, a three-week social media contest entitled “Show Me 389 Giveaway” invited players to celebrate the Missouri Lottery’s FY24 transfer to education. Players who posted a photo of themselves with a “$389 Million” message were entered for the chance to win $389 worth of Scratchers tickets. At the end, a compilation video was created from those photos and shared on our social channels.
Other Strategies. Each year, an updated Where the Money Goes” brochure is created for our play centers, and they are also distributed in social media winners’ goodie bags and provided to legislators. During a recent election cycle, incorrect information regarding Lottery proceeds was featured in advertising for a state constitutional amendment. To complement the traditional beneficiary awareness content already posted on our social media and to further promote awareness outside our immediate followers, we put paid advertising support behind a “Myth vs. Fact” animation in the weeks leading up to the election.
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Montana Lottery
We have been doing an image campaign for almost a year now recognizing the over $2 million the Montana Lottery gives for STEM scholarships every year through the Montana University System. Our goals for this campaign were to continue to build awareness of the STEM scholarships funded by the Lottery, to continue to build the Montana Lottery brand and remind Montanans of how it benefits the state, and to build brand equity in the Lottery to further drive loyalty and ticket sales.
Our campaign ran through broadcast TV, radio, online video, streaming audio, native articles and banners, HTML email, paid social ads, and billboards. We received 204,970 completed online video views with a 73.45% completion rate. We also received an audio completion rate of 97.68% for streaming audio (Pandora/Spotify). For META paid ads, we had a click-through rate of 4.07%, which is fantastic since the platform average is 0.9%! Overall, we had a very successful campaign that is still ongoing. We have had positive feedback and even a few comments from players who had no idea we gave to STEM scholarships. So far, we have given 2,171 STEM scholarships to Montana students, and we can’t wait for the 2025 recipients.
Nebraska Lottery
At the beginning of October 2024, the Nebraska Lottery announced a significant milestone in its 30-year history: transferring over $1 billion in proceeds back to Nebraska since 1993. Promoting this achievement involved several marketing and communications efforts. A press release was developed with the beneficiary programs to highlight how Nebraska Lottery proceeds are Helping to Build a Better Nebraska. A new logo with the tagline, $1 Billion Back to Nebraska, was added to all current Lottery materials. And a beneficiary campaign with digital, television and radio was created to promote that all 93 counties in Nebraska have benefited from Nebraska Lottery proceeds. We also created a microsite for the $1 Billion campaign.
We usually create a new beneficiary campaign every few years. Between campaigns we’ll update the proceeds transfer totals to keep them fresh. Beneficiary recall by players is evaluated in our regular tracking studies. Analysis of the 2025 tracking study responses is in process, but in the 2023 tracking study, 32% of players surveyed said they could name any of the specific groups or programs that benefit from lottery proceeds in Nebraska. The most common beneficiary mentioned was schools/education, with 46% of past year lottery players identifying this as a use for lottery proceeds, compared to 39% for non-players.
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New Hampshire Lottery
Here in New Hampshire, we’ve been known to have a little (or maybe a lot) of fun with initiatives that help draw the connection between our games and the beneficiary here in the Granite State, public education funding.
Throughout the year, we work with New Hampshire-based Recycled Percussion, “America’s junk rock band” and third place finisher in Season 4 of America’s Got Talent. Through a sponsorship with Recycled Percussion, we bring the band into schools for special performances that are nothing short of inspiring, along with a check from the Lottery for $2,500 that schools can use as they see fit. Those schools are chosen at random from nominations by our social media followers.
Recently, we worked with a couple of legendary athletes, former New England Patriots placekicker and Super Bowl champion Stephen Gostkowski and former Boston Bruins captain and Stanley Cup winner, Patrice Bergeron. High school football and hockey players, selected at random from social media nominations, had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go head-to-head with Gostkowski and Bergeron, for the chance to win big-time bragging rights and money for their schools. Imagine being able to say you kicked field goals with a Super Bowl Champion or shared the ice with a Stanley Cup Winner!
All of these events help us go further with our beneficiary promotion, beyond television, radio, social posts and more. The opportunity is there and we just execute it!
New Jersey Lottery
The New Jersey Lottery visits major statewide conventions each fall: the League of Municipalities (which holds the largest municipal convention in the country), the New Jersey Education Association teachers’ convention, and the School Board Convention. The purpose of our presence a these events is to build awareness and underscore the Lottery’s contribution to the public pension fund, which exceeds $1 billion annually.
New Jersey Lottery leaders also frequently meet with the Garden State’s community-based groups, including senior clubs, business organizations and legislators through our Where the Money Goes Tour. We provide insight into the New Jersey Lottery’s REAL mission: to improve the lives of countless Garden State residents. Our presentation consists of a 15-minute PowerPoint demonstration, followed by a brief Q&A period, and some interesting and amusing stories about our games, retailers and winners.
In addition, we hold an annual second-chance drawing, the Million Dollar Replay. More than 400 players win a chance to participate in a drawing for prizes from $10,000 to $1 million. The event also goes a long way to building goodwill among players and the Lottery.
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New Mexico Lottery
In New Mexico, 100% of net Lottery proceeds fund education, specifically the Legislative Lottery Scholarship. In 2023, we reached a significant milestone: More than $1 billion had been raised for education. We created graphics and audio to promote this milestone with POS, digital outdoor billboards, TV and radio, digital ads, social media and in player emails. This significant number is easy to remember and we are still using the graphics and messages in 2025.
To measure our beneficiary awareness as well as inform players about our beneficiaries, we began conducting an annual survey in 2022. Results and awareness growth are impressive. Players are increasingly aware that 100% of net proceeds from the New Mexico Lottery fund the Legislative Lottery Scholarship Fund. We asked the question “Did you know that 100% of net lottery proceeds fund Legislative Lottery Scholarships?” In 2022, only 27% of players answered yes. That grew to 34% in 2023, and 82% in 2024!
Players are also increasingly aware of how much money has been raised for education through the Legislative Lottery Scholarship Fund. In our 2023 and 2024 surveys, we asked them “Do you know how much money has been raised for education through the Legislative Lottery Scholarship Fund?” and provided a multiple-choice answer. In 2024, 34% of players chose the correct answer, compared to just 14% in 2023.
Annually, beneficiary awareness is promoted with marketing campaigns to coincide with the legislative session in February and graduations in May. Most recently, we discussed the Legislative Lottery fund on the local TV Show, New Mexico Living.
New York Lottery
New Yorkers are dreamers. Dreamers that aspire to be bigger and better, whether it’s to become an engineer and design the bridges that span the state, or to be an astronaut who joins the few individuals who’ve landed on the moon.
These dreams begin early in New York Public Schools. The New York Lottery’s recent Aid to Education initiative seeks to increase awareness of its constitutional mission to raise revenue to support New York Public Schools. However, this mission isn’t widely known. In fact, only one in every four New Yorkers is aware that every dollar spent on a New York Lottery ticket supports public education in the state.
We sought to change this with an Aid to Education awareness campaign that highlights the $3+ billion generated for public schools in 2023-24 and the more than $82 billion contributed to public education since our inception nearly 60 years ago. We leveraged our owned media including website, mobile app, social media, in-store digital signage, ticket backs and ticket messaging. We launched a media campaign across television, digital, out-of-home and print. We also created an enhanced version of our logo with the education message and released a promotional ticket with education messaging. The Lottery used the ticket as promotional prize at fairs and sponsorship events. The cash prizes ranged from $1 to $50 with overall odds of winning of 1 in 2.
The initiative garnered over 178 million impressions, and awareness of our mission increased 5.1%. Further, 59% of individuals exposed to the messaging had a more favorable impression of the New York Lottery, and the advertising campaign was among the more appealing Lottery campaigns.
The New York Lottery is proud of the contributions it makes every day for New York’s Public Schools, and we’re especially proud to celebrate the billions contributed to New York public education since our inception in 1967.
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North Carolina Education Lottery
For our lottery to be sustainable and enjoy broad public support, North Carolinians need to be confident that the money it raises serves the public good. Personal stories, collected and shared with our Moving North Carolina Students Forward program, reveal how $1 billion a year raised by the N.C. Education Lottery, makes a difference in our state. North Carolinians see and hear real stories of the impact, and we believe these testimonials effectively demonstrate how the lottery raises funds and supports education.
Moving NC Students Forward, begun in 2023, demonstrates that to our stakeholders, building on two previous programs, “Proud Moments” and “NC School Heroes.” The branded beneficiary program consists of advertising, marketing and PR campaigns centered around a microsite. There, North Carolinians submit stories on how money raised by the lottery has benefited them, their student, or their school. Visitors to the site can also see a map which displays the dollars received by each county to better understand the benefits to their own communities.
We review the stories and choose the most compelling ones to share. Then, we produce video stories from each region of the state, collect them on the microsite, and showcase them as part of our Moving NC Students Forward advertising campaigns.
By dividing our state into four regions, we create and share content that feels local and, ideally, relevant to those living in that region. We aim to collect four new stories every quarter. So far, we have created 16 videos – with both long and short versions of each for all our potential uses. We plan to have 32 videos by the end of the fiscal year. This program is designed to last for several years with the goal of building a collection of stories and keeping the pipeline filled so that over time North Carolinians see stories of the benefits of the lottery from their region of the state.
We use a variety of outreach methods to collect stories, and people who appear in our videos receive $2,000 each for their time and story. We felt the award was large enough to make someone excited to get chosen and enthusiastic about sharing their story. Our experience is that while folks appreciate the money, they also are proud to share their story with the N.C. Education Lottery.
Our goals are of this program are:
Build a greater understanding of the NCEL’s contributions to education in four key areas: building new schools, free NC Pre-K, college scholarships, and school support staff.
Create an emotional link to the lottery with moments of personal connection tied to education.
Raise awareness of the incredible scale of our impact – $12 Billion as of January 2025.
Reconnect all stakeholders to our mission and values.
Ohio Lottery
In addition to our Partners in Education Program, we have other opportunities for beneficiary messaging. We use the annual Lottery Week social media campaign to showcase our benefits for the local economy and retailers, the fun and memorable experiences we offer our players, and ultimately the money we raise for education. We also highlight top students among Ohio’s high school graduating class in our annual Best of Class campaign, which is aired during graduation season on TV across the state.
Ontario Lottery and Gaming
Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. (OLG) is marking its 50th anniversary this year, and after 50 years, our core purpose remains giving back to the people of Ontario. While every dollar of profit is returned to the provincial government to fund priorities such as hospitals and education, OLG continues to focus on give-back initiatives in our day-to-day operations.
These initiatives have necessarily evolved to ensure they are relevant. Those in the under-35 demographic are very vocal with their wallets about supporting products and companies that are committed to worthy causes. However, they seek transparency and tangible proof of OLG’s contributions to the community.
We have been very thoughtful on our approach as to what initiatives and projects would be most impactful, and a few unique campaigns stand out – some of them around sports, reflecting our very early years when profits supported physical fitness, sports, culture and recreation in Ontario.
One of our most creative give-back campaigns was the Emily Mandamin Story, which leveraged an existing sports partnership to create a digital storytelling campaign that highlighted our commitment to Truth and Reconciliation with the Indigenous community. The award-winning campaign was highlighted in these pages last year. Other innovative recent campaigns include:
Home Court and Home Ice Advantage. Again leveraging our sponsorship with one of the biggest sports entertainment companies in Canada, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE), owners of the Toronto Raptors and Toronto Maple Leafs, and its charitable foundation, OLG launched a campaign in 2024 called Home Court Advantage.
Working with MLSE, we identified four community organizations that are changing the lives of Ontarians through basketball: a professional wheelchair basketball team; an Indigenous provincial sporting body; a program helping leadership development in underserved communities; and a community hub helping those with accessibility issues. We asked basketball fans and the public to support each of these organizations by playing a free Home Court Advantage game through the Toronto Raptors App. Every play increased the donation amount from OLG and MLSE Foundation, plus allowed fans the chance to win prizes. Together, we donated $15,000 to each organization to support their efforts to provide positive, inclusive and empowering spaces for sport.
The program was so engaging and successful that we repeated it in 2025, and added another called Home Ice Advantage, which involved the Toronto Maple Leafs and organizations across Ontario that, through the sport of hockey, work to create inclusive, empowering, and supportive spaces that allow their communities to thrive. These organizations each benefited from a $10,000 donation.
Lotto Max Dream Drop and Thrift Drop. In 2022, OLG and Lotto Max partnered with well-known Toronto based designer, Mr. Saturday, to launch an exclusive apparel collection called Lotto Max Dream Drop. Each piece had a special Lotto Max code stitched onto it that gave customers one year’s worth of Lotto Max tickets redeemable at OLG.ca. At OLG, we care for Ontario and celebrate our differences, so profits from this collaboration were donated to an organization known as BLACK HXOUSE, which is a creative incubator that empowers BIPOC individuals, through mentorship, tools and learning opportunities. Using social media, influencers, mainstream and industry-related media, along with brick-and-mortar pop-up shops, the Dream Drop campaign was so successful that all the apparel sold out in less than 15 minutes.
In 2024, OLG reimagined that success with a new campaign, Lotto Max Thrift Drop, inspired by recent sustainable consumer shopping trends and an increased demand for second-hand and vintage items. We offered a new limited-edition upcycled clothing collection, created by international fashion designer Kevin Leonel, that included the same Lotto Max bonus utilized in Dream Drop. All proceeds from the Lotto Max Thrift Drop collection were donated to EcoEquitable, a Canadian charity dedicated to reducing textile waste and empowering women through sewing skills development.
A Culture of Giving. These are only a few of the give-back campaigns OLG has done over the last few years. Our unwavering dedication to making a positive difference ensures that we will continue to be vital in enhancing the lives of Ontarians for many years to come.
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Oregon Lottery
Oregon Lottery is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and Lottery dollars help fund seven different beneficiaries in Oregon: public education, economic development, natural resources, state parks, veterans services, outdoor school, and problem gambling support/treatment.
Year after year, Oregonians say they want transparency from the Oregon Lottery and to see how the dollars generated through the sales of our games are being used in their communities. Because our beneficiary portfolio is so vast, we tell the stories of each of our beneficiaries with real people and connect how Lottery funding is part of the project or effort. The goal is to make sure every community in Oregon can see themselves reflected in the digital content and videos created, adding purpose and civic pride in addition to the excitement of playing lottery games.
Typically, these four- to six-week digital campaigns drive traffic to “infotaining” landing pages highlighting specific Oregon Lottery-funded projects or programs. These “Featured Funded Program” pages offer short documentaries, unique or in-depth content blocks, engagement opportunities and a visitor journey that is built to invite viewers to continue to other similar pages. Whether Lottery dollars helped to fund veteran programs for the nine-federally recognized tribes in Oregon or were used to help rural businesses scale up operations by establishing local farmers’ markets, our audiences benefit from connecting Lottery game play to direct beneficiaries in their zip codes.
Each of the Featured Funded campaigns is tuned to reach and engage specific segments of Oregonians. Each campaign generates approximately three million impressions across the digital media mix and contributes roughly 10% of our total yearly website traffic. Most importantly, they have proven successful. As part of a 2019 strategic shift toward digital marketing, launching new tools and a more contextual approach to content, Oregonians began to view the Lottery more favorably. The trend shifted from more than a decade of hovering in the mid to low 60s, to an average of 77% since 2020.
For more than a decade, “Together we do good things” has been the simple but powerful motto Oregon Lottery staff, players and others have rallied behind. As we celebrate our 40th anniversary of making a difference in Oregon, we’ll do so with the confidence that our communities are better informed and more favorable about the work we are doing to make the state a wonderful place to call home.
Pennsylvania Lottery
The PA Lottery benefits campaign plays a key role in our marketing strategy. Insights from a research analysis highlighted the need to update this important message. Awareness of the Lottery’s proceeds was particularly low among Gen Z and Millennials, who place a high value on social responsibility. This gap was one of the driving factors behind our decision to explore a new campaign approach. With the Lottery benefiting older Pennsylvanians, that sets us apart from other gaming options in the market.
The tagline “You Play. Everyone Wins.” was inspired by the idea that the fun and excitement of playing PA Lottery games sparks thoughts of winning. While winning isn’t guaranteed for everyone, it is for older Pennsylvanians. So, when you play, everyone wins. This message is powerful because it appeals emotionally, fostering a sense of community across generations and emphasizing that the PA Lottery is for everyone. After additional testing and receiving positive feedback, the campaign was launched and will continue in the future.
The 2025 benefits campaign includes 30-second TV commercials airing in May in support of Older Americans Month, and three social media videos that began on 2/25 and will run through 4/25.
Rhode Island Lottery
Last year was our 50th anniversary, so we used that time to share some total numbers of prizes paid to players, commissions to retailers and local businesses, and how much was raised for the General Fund in our 50-year history. We’ve done beneficiary awareness messaging in the past but it’s not an easy message to sell because our contributions aren’t earmarked for a specific fund or area.
South Dakota Lottery
The South Dakota Lottery’s slogan is “Good Fun, Fun for Good,” and we emphasize this through our beneficiary messaging to our players. Our “Good Fun” brand has resonated with players and is included in most of our marketing efforts.
With beneficiary awareness, we typically highlight that Lottery revenues help fund important initiatives such as education, roads and natural resources. A key component of paid media for this messaging is a video spot. Our paid advertising campaigns also include billboards, social media and digital display ads.
We’ve utilized some creative opportunities to showcase the good that the South Dakota Lottery does. An example of this was a Players Club email that celebrated Lottery Day and our beneficiaries in a creative manner. For example: “Did you know the Lottery generates 49 million pennies per day to help the State of South Dakota? That’s enough to reach the top of the Empire State Building 170 times.” We’ve been able to generate strong engagement on these emails by presenting our financial information in a fun manner.
We have also included beneficiary messaging in some of our disruptive advertising efforts. For example, we have a Lottery-themed Santa who distributes holiday scratch tickets at local bars. Scratch tickets aren’t all that players receive though, as we also provide an insert with beneficiary messaging. There can be challenges with this messaging though. With most of our proceeds going to the state’s General Fund, we have received some questions from South Dakotans about how these funds are used. In these instances, our goal is to be as transparent as possible with players in directing them to financial reports from both the Lottery and the State of South Dakota.
Tennessee Education Lottery
The Tennessee Education Lottery heartily embraces its mission of maximizing dollars to fund specific education programs. Programs include scholarships and grants to higher education institutions, K-12 after-school programs and an energy-efficient schools initiative. In just over 21 years, more than $7.7 billion has been raised, and more than 2.2 million scholarships and grants to colleges and universities have been awarded.
We use a variety of strategies to raise awareness about the good causes we fund, and we continuously remind Tennesseans about the important role the Lottery plays in the community. In fact, those who visit the Lottery’s offices are immediately aware of the amount raised for education, thanks to a wall mural of a blackboard that displays the ever-increasing amount.
Some of our strategies include:
Presenting oversized checks at college sporting events.
Featuring success stories on our website.
Including beneficiary messaging at the point-of-sale.
A multi-faceted advertising campaign takes place twice yearly to coincide with graduation and back-to-school seasons (May and August); platforms include print, television, radio, social media and point-of-sale marketing materials.
Designing creative education-themed slides for the digital display monitors at retailer locations.
There are even reminders of the Lottery’s success for education at our four claim center offices – large wall murals depict the number of scholarships and awards given to Tennessee students.
Outside of these beneficiary awareness channels, we have developed two additional programs to honor students and educators. The first is the Tennessee Lottery Educator of the Week. The other, “TEL Your Story,” spotlights students who have received a Lottery-funded award by featuring them on our website.
The Tennessee Education Lottery has an incredible story to tell, and we continue to develop new ways to do so.
Texas Lottery
Beneficiary awareness is driven through sponsorships/sports partnerships as well as social media. The Texas Lottery typically runs product-focused ad campaigns, while beneficiary messaging is woven into events/sports partnerships all year long.
We have the following sponsorships with an education and/or veteran’s focus:
University of Texas Football – Sponsor of the Texas Lottery Veteran of the Game
Austin FC – Sponsor of the Teacher of the Match
Houston Astros – Presenting Sponsor of Armed Forces Day
Texas Rangers – Presenting Sponsor of the Teacher Ticket Discount special and Sponsor of Teacher Appreciation Community Night
National Medal of Honor Museum – Presenting partner of the Texas Youth Field Trip
Program and Presenting partner of the Texas Veterans Museum Ticket Program
Virginia Lottery
In addition to our educator awards programs, the Virginia Lottery also sponsors more than 60 education-related professional development events and conferences throughout the year. Our presence includes “hosting” a table at which we have the opportunity to engage one-on-one with our educator stakeholders. We incorporate fun activities and giveaways that reinforce our important mission. We also often have the opportunity to speak directly to all of the attendees (which ranges from 300 to 1,000 depending on the event) during a breakfast, lunch or dinner setting.
For the last few years, we have also run a paid media campaign that is specifically for beneficiary awareness and our fiscal year turnover amount (mainly a digital campaign that highlights our big turnover number, or the number since 1999 – which is now up to $13 billion!) And a section of our website showcases our mission, featuring a spot produced by our in-house media production team and documents that we also hand out at education-related events.
In fact, our beneficiary message is baked into just about everything we do and everywhere we go! We also utilize our Lottery Outreach Program and our Community Events efforts to showcase our mission. The Outreach Program launched in July 2023 to reinvigorate employee volunteerism, helping us take an active and positive role in the community. Our Community Events plan is led by our Communications & Customer Relations team. We sponsor approximately a dozen events annually, large and small, and they allow the Virginia Lottery to engage with Virginians and raise awareness about our support of K-12 public education in Virginia. Lottery employees have the opportunity to work these events, which is often a benefit for those who do not regularly work in customer-facing roles.
Washington's Lottery
At Washington’s Lottery, our mission is simple yet powerful: we drive sales to support beneficiaries, not the other way around. This singular focus shapes everything we do and underscores our commitment to benefiting the people of Washington. Over the past three years, this commitment has driven a significant shift in how we communicate about our work – moving away from highlighting contribution amounts to championing the causes of our beneficiaries. This strategic pivot reflects our belief that building awareness of why these causes matter and how they impact Washingtonians is just as important as providing financial support.
For many of our beneficiaries, funding challenges are constant. Legislative budget priorities can shift rapidly due to changing economic and political conditions, making long-term planning difficult. Even though our contributions provide valuable stability, they are only one piece of the puzzle. As a comparatively small lottery, we recognize that our ability to meet all funding needs is limited. But what we lack in scale, we make up for with creativity, passion, and a commitment to amplifying the vital work of our beneficiaries. Our goal is to ensure Washingtonians understand why these causes matter – and to build trust in how their dollars are making a difference.
Historically, lotteries have often focused on showcasing the size of their contributions. While this approach highlights their importance, it risks creating the perception that beneficiaries already receive all the funding they need. We realized that if we wanted to truly champion our beneficiaries, we needed to change the narrative. Instead of emphasizing how much we give, we shifted our strategy to promoting the importance of the work our beneficiaries do. For example, our two leading beneficiaries – early childhood education programs and grants for further education and certifications – are critical to the future of Washington. By focusing on their stories, we aim to inspire pride and support for their missions while maintaining transparency about where player dollars go.
To build awareness of the importance of early childhood education and its impact on Washington families, and to showcase how Washingtonians can directly benefit from grants for higher education and professional certifications, our campaigns used paid TV spots during prime viewing hours, targeted social media ads, and large-scale billboards in high-traffic areas
At Washington’s Lottery, championing our beneficiaries isn’t just a strategy – it’s the right thing to do. We feel incredibly fortunate to be in a position where we can amplify the impact of organizations that make Washington a better place for everyone. Whether it’s through funding early education or helping individuals pursue higher learning, we are proud to play a role in supporting the future of our state.
West Virginia Lottery
Each year during the legislative session, the West Virginia Lottery runs its “Where the Money Goes” campaign across TV and radio to remind West Virginians how lottery proceeds support education, seniors, and tourism. This year’s campaign aired from February through mid-April – but for the first time, it was also extended through our Play On loyalty program, giving it a longer life and broader reach. That loyalty program, and our launch of iLottery on October 31, have created new ways to engage players and educate them about the benefits of lottery proceeds. Strong early engagement signals that players are responding to this new digital approach to an important message.
After iLottery launched, the proceeds spot was introduced as one of our first “View URL” promotions – an evergreen feature that rewards players with 500 loyalty points for watching. The response has been remarkable! Of our 56,708 loyalty members, 6,024 have already completed the view, making it the second most-watched URL out of the 20 we’ve offered so far.
Wyoming Lottery
In August of 2024, WyoLotto celebrated 10 years of serving Wyoming. In that 10 years, we have accomplished what we were made to do – our mission is to maximize giving back to the state of Wyoming, which we have done in ways we couldn’t have imagined. Of course, we have provided revenue to our good cause – over $41 million has been raised for Wyoming’s cities, towns and counties. These are dollars that these communities need and would not have without the Lottery. Some communities use the funds for police activities, while others have designated the funds to improve facilities for local 4H and FFA events. The beauty in the funds from the lottery is that each of the cities, towns and counties can utilize the money where they need it most.
Throughout the last year we celebrated across Wyoming with a 10-year anniversary marketing campaign showcasing how WyoLotto has become a part of the state. The campaign features our direct and indirect contributions to Wyoming’s communities, businesses and players. The campaign has run with local media throughout the year to reach our stakeholders about what we have done with the money in which they have entrusted to us.
We care about the effect we can have on our state, so we also contribute through sponsorships, local media buys, retailer commissions and of course, paying our winners. We also give back through our corporate responsibility of making sure to promote responsible gambling and do our part to prevent problem gambling. WyoLotto recently achieved Planning Level certification in the NASPL/NCPG Responsible Gambling Verification Best Practices Program.
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