28 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2026 campaigns such as ‘Play the Right Way’ launched earlier this year or by inviting regulators to sit at the table at our events and conferences. We also place a high priority on building strong relationships with experts and academics working in this sector to ensure we are meeting or exceeding industry standards, and always exploring new ways we can innovate to meet changing needs. What RG innovations are you driving at Allwyn to enhance player safety? Are you using AI and new technologies to support with this? R. Chvátal: AI is central to our approach to responsible gaming. At OPAP, the AI Safety Net Algorithm, which is a proprietary piece of software, predicts which players are likely to be at risk and allows us to make interventions earlier, preventing player harm before it arises. At Sazka, we have adopted the Player Info Centre, a dashboard which gives players direct access to their own gaming statistics and spending patterns. We have a cross-market expert group aimed at sharing best practices and driving forward a world-class set of safety standards, and we also launched the Player Protection Lab, which is designed to disburse funds to novel projects and ideas in responsible gaming, so we are genuinely advancing and innovating in this space. The number of applications far exceeded our expectations, making the choice quite difficult for our team, but we’ll be making the first Player Protection Lab awards early in 2026 – watch this space. What is the importance of digital to the growth of your business more broadly – how are you using it to revitalise lotteries, create new games and make them more engaging? R. Chvátal: Digitalisation is a major part of the way we modernise lotteries. When we first took over Sazka, everything was analogue and paper-based. Through bringing things into the 21st century, we made it substantially more profitable, more engaging and rewarding for players, and breathed new life into the business. Some of our lotteries are more digital than others – for example, the share of digital in the Italian market is relatively low, but then in the UK it’s much higher – but we want to see this increase everywhere. Between 2019 and 2024, the share of gross gaming revenue coming from digital leapt from 4% to 39% across the group. We also recently appointed Kresimir Spajic, a veteran of the industry and someone hugely experienced in the U.S. market, as the CEO of Allwyn Digital, a new global business area, overseeing our iGaming, sportsbook and digital product capabilities. It’s a big area of focus for us. Can you tell me about the technological upgrades you are making to the UK – including to terminals in your retail outlets? How will this enhance the player experience? R. Chvátal: We’ve invested more than £400 million into the UK tech transformation and our UK team has pulled off an incredibly impressive feat this year – involving more than 43,000 lottery terminals across the UK, and millions of lines of data being transferred. The upgrade is central to our commitment to transform the National Lottery in the UK and will mean more games, more chances to win, better prizes for players, and a smoother experience for retailers. It will also support our ambitions to deliver more money for Good Causes. The previous licence holder hadn’t delivered major technical upgrades since 2009, before the iPad had even come into being, so it was long overdue. Can you talk about the societal impact of lotteries? Good Causes contributions certainly look impressive, but what is the effect you see in the local communities lotteries support? R. Chvátal: In 2024 alone, we contributed €4.8 billion in gaming taxes and good causes contributions in the countries where we operate. The impact of that is immense – and for local communities, transformative. Lottery funding has played a substantial role in the UK’s Olympic success, and its role as a cultural titan, but what we’ve found is lotteries have a convening power we can harness to change lives in every market. That’s why we launched the F1 Allwyn Global Community Award in partnership with Formula 1, aimed at recognising the contribution of grassroots community organisations in the places that host Grands Prix and enabling them to further the impact of their work through additional funding. Early winners including Stichting HandicapNL, a Dutch organisation which aims to improve event accessibility, and Green Our Planet, a sustainability education initiative based in Las Vegas. Could you tell us about some of the things you have in store for 2026? R. Chvátal: 2026 could be Allwyn’s biggest year yet. Early on, we hope to complete the acquisitions of Novibet and PrizePicks, as well as gain approval to proceed with the OPAP business combination. Under Allwyn’s stewardship, we have delivered significant returns for OPAP’s minority shareholders, and we look forward to bringing them on this next phase in Allwyn’s international growth journey. After that, we intend to pursue an additional listing for Allwyn on a leading international exchange, likely either New York or London. This will have the benefit of providing greater access to capital. Of course, I’ve mentioned the rebranding of Sazka and OPAP, which will take place in January. We’ll be entering the second year of our partnerships with McLaren and Formula 1, and will be looking to leverage these even further, developing and enhancing initiatives such as the Scratch Car, which we launched in Las Vegas in November. Later in 2026, we’ll also be looking to launch a new iLottery platform, a key milestone in our tech transformation. There’s a huge amount to be excited about, as we continue to grow and develop further, faster and pursue our ambition of becoming the leading global gaming entertainment company. n These acquisitions support our vision to become the world’s leading gaming entertainment company, building on our strong foundation as a leading multi-national lottery operator. Lottery-Led, Future-Focused: How Allwyn Is Building a Global Gaming Entertainment Company — continued from page 12
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