Director of Sales and Marketing, Kansas Lottery
Published July 24, 2024
Lotteries and casinos have similar goals – to capture the attention of busy consumers by providing engaging entertainment in a manner that remains relevant as society changes. Tools and techniques may vary, but the underlying ideas are the same. Just ask Stephen Ortiz, whose eight-plus years at the Kansas Lottery followed a successful career in the casino industry. And the Lottery has reaped the benefits.
“Sales and marketing are obviously incredibly important for any lottery, and you need someone in charge who is confident in their approach while also being willing to adapt or change as needed,” says Stephen Durrell, Executive Director of the Kansas Lottery. “We are very lucky to have that in Stephen Ortiz. He has built an award-winning department that we can consistently count on, and is always willing to step in and help in other areas when needed.”
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Ortiz joined the Kansas Lottery as Director of Sales and Marketing in May 2016 after a distinguished career in the gaming industry, notably 10 years with the Prairie Band Casino & Resort, ending up there as Assistant General Manager and Director of Marketing. Under his direction at the Lottery are the sales, marketing, events and retailer services functions, and he oversees a staff of 21 in sales and six in marketing.
On the retail front, he likes what he sees especially from corporate accounts in Kansas, with retailers becoming more active in managing inventory to reduce out-of-stocks as they have greater realization of just how important lottery is to their business and to the state in general. He’s looking forward to the eventual adoption of ticket-by-ticket accounting across the industry and seeing what other retail tools the vendor partners come up with.
At the same time, he knows that consumers are used to making purchases and connecting with brands in the digital world. “We have to figure out the digital sphere and work on our growing pains in that area,” says Ortiz. To that end, Kansas Lottery recently announced plans to launch an iLottery program, which will offer eInstants and selected draw games online. “We have to provide opportunities for customers to actively engage and purchase through their phone. They want that convenience.”
When he’s not helping move the Kansas Lottery forward, Ortiz shares his life with his wife Jacqueline and soon-to-be 9-year-old daughter Ryder. “She is the center of our life,” and a big reason why Kansas remains their home, despite plenty of opportunities for gaming-related work elsewhere.
An enrolled member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, Ortiz has always enjoyed a strong bond and connection to nature and the greater conscience. As a child he spent almost every weekend either fishing or hunting with his dad, brother and grandfather. He has been fishing in competitive bass tournaments since he was 15 – he won his very first tournament! With too many awards to mention, he has competed in regional and national tournaments. “I have had the opportunity to have some amazing wins, catches and harvests. The biggest part if it all is making connections with people that have become a bigger part of our family, and experiencing nature from the Great Lakes to South Texas.”
His wife and daughter don’t share his passion for fishing, but they all enjoy traveling and experiencing the world.
Ortiz has an MBA and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting, both from Washburn University in Topeka.
Why did you move away from casino industry operations, and what did you learn during your casino career that translated well to the Kansas Lottery?
After completing my last contract, I had time to look for new opportunities. In the midst of that break, my wife tells me she’s expecting our first child. That presented a whole new dynamic for what was next for me. We wanted to stay in the area to have our parents help us – family is very important. In fact, my wife’s grandmother is still alive at age 103, and my dad’s a disabled Vietnam veteran. We wanted to do everything we could to raise our child in a nurturing family environment, much as we ourselves were raised.
In the midst of all that, this position at the Kansas Lottery popped up. It was very eerily similar to what I did in the past, from both an operations and marketing standpoint – helping to build promotions and drive revenues for what is basically a gaming business. In addition, I already had relationships with the media throughout the whole region, and that helped as well. It was a nice, easy transition from casino to lottery.
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What are the most important initiatives you have driven at the Kansas Lottery during your tenure to date?
Early on, I noticed that there was a lot of opportunity to modernize the Kansas Lottery’s games and retail footprint. One of the first projects, which goes back to my background in casino marketing, was developing a loyalty program. Partnering with Pollard Banknote, we launched PlayOn, creating more of an omnichannel experience for players with compelling promotions that engage our customers and extend their play. In seven years, we went from zero to over 319,000 members, with more than 30% of them active on a monthly basis. That’s really created some really unique opportunities for us.
Another key was the introduction of our first $30 and $50 price points. When I arrived in 2016, our highest-priced instant games were $20. It wasn’t long before the pandemic dramatically changed the overall lottery market, and suddenly $30 and $50 price points were commonplace around the industry. If we didn’t add those products, we would be leaving opportunities on the table.
We also introduced the Lottery’s first vending program in 2019. We were late into the game here, as legislative approvals were needed. Once we got that, we’ve been getting vending units deployed to market – about 370 of them to date. It doesn’t happen overnight, with training required for both retailers and our own sales team, but it has really had an impact here.
Are there any lottery marketing or promotional campaigns you’ve directed that really stand out?
One of the most popular promotions we have offers lifetime hunting and fishing licenses. It had been a staple every year, and people would call in requesting that we bring it back. Perhaps our most famous promotion involved giving away a side of beef along with a freezer. During the pandemic, when resources became scarce, our PlayOn manager came in one day and said that we needed a new promotion. We came up with the beef. We joked about it, but it really worked!
As noted earlier, the introduction of the $50 ticket was a milestone for the Kansas Lottery, and one key feature of the related promotion was that we utilized one of the top prizes as a second-chance prize. The $500,000 prize to be given away in the drawing on Oct. 10, 2024, is the largest second-chance prize ever given away through PlayOn.
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Dating back to my early casino days, I’ve been an enlightened trend watcher. It has led to some really cool campaigns, such as our game Cosmic Cash and its second-chance promotion with more cash prizes. Capitalizing on interest in UFOs, that promotion in 2022 set the standard for our summer promotions and we challenge ourselves to exceed it each year.
In the end, we all know that cash is always king, so it’s really about finding a balance between cash and experiences or prizes you might not get otherwise. You don’t have to win a billion dollars in order to become a winner – you could have a memorable prize like a side of beef and a freezer, or a lifetime hunting and fishing license. Premium items that are really unique so you will tell your friends and family.
You’re proud of your achievements in sports marketing. What are some of the highlights?
I would be remiss not to mention the Kansas City Chiefs! We’ve had an NFL-licensed property with the Chiefs since 2015, and we really put our creative mark on those tickets. I knew there was an opportunity to raise the ticket price point from $5 to $10, and it’s another trend that we are capitalizing on – the Chiefs being one of the most valuable NFL franchises right now. Our $10 Chiefs ticket was the highest-indexing NFL licensed ticket in the U.S. market last year. We’re a small lottery with a small population, but we’re trying to play with the big dogs!
One thing we did across our entire football sports marketing portfolio (professional and college) was brand the red zone – after all, our teams are in scoring position so often, why shouldn’t it be the Kansas Lottery Red Zone? Our Spanish-language broadcast partner keeps it going with the Kansas Lottery Rojo Zone. It really helps drive the conversation to add more value.
There are so many others. We have worked extensively with the in-state universities, University of Kansas and Kansas State University, to build a co-branded ticket (Rivalry Riches) that has also become a staple of our annual portfolio. And we have a long-standing relationship with NASCAR, and NASCAR race weekend is one of our most popular annual promotions with amazing experiential packages for our players.
We also bring value to all the teams with our PlayOn loyalty club, since we have an active audience of 319,000 members. It gives us stronger negotiating power because we can bring those engaged fans to the table.
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Is there anything you wish the Kansas Lottery, or lotteries in general, could do differently?
Lotteries are government entities, and government is an institution which has its own nuances and its own way of functioning. Commercial businesses work at a different pace and in a different environment. Casinos reinvest regularly in capital – for human resources, technology, improvements, and anything else that might come up. A big challenge for lotteries in general is not having a structure that lets them hold back capital in order to invest in their future. From a technology standpoint, the world is moving so fast that it’s kind of a threat to the lottery business – they aren’t able to quickly adjust to changes, especially changes at retail. As we get more automated stores, where does lottery fit into that model?
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Attracting and retaining top talent is another area where lotteries can fall behind. I came from a business where I could always go after top talent and make a deal to put them on my team. Government doesn’t necessarily work that way, so it’s challenging. That holds true for diversity, equity and inclusion programs as well. Governments may be a little behind on recognizing the importance of diversity in the workforce, which is really important to building a top caliber workforce.
The bottom line is that governments typically demand that lotteries increase their returns every year, but don’t always understand what it takes to get there.
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What have you enjoyed the most about your time at the Kansas Lottery? The least?
I really have enjoyed seeing the progress that we’ve made since 2016. It has been great to help grow lottery revenues and contribute to the causes we support across the state. I also love being able to provide meaningful employment for our team – we’re a pretty small and tight-knit group. The entire Kansas Lottery is like a close-knit family, and I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to contribute on a daily basis.
There’s nothing I don’t really like, but there are the general limitations on a government operation, as I mentioned earlier. It has been hard coming from the casino industry, where there are no limits. But even then, I enjoy challenges!