Andria Vidler’s bold National Lottery reboot
Expect new ideas and enhanced player safeguards after a daunting technological overhaul that will take the lottery offline for 36 hours
The restaurant at the Royal Ballet and Opera in Covent Garden is being refurbished but Piazza Terrace’s balcony, which overlooks London’s rooftops, is still open. Thankfully it benefits from a summer breeze on what is a hot July day. I am here to meet Andria Vidler, the chief executive of Allwyn UK, which has been the National Lottery operator since taking over the coveted licence from Camelot in February last year.
Her main connection to the beautiful building is lottery funding. The opera house has had its fair share over the years: more than £97 million since 1997. The largest grant was for £78 million in 1995 as part of an ambitious redevelopment led by the former Royal Opera house boss Tony Hall.
The National Lottery is on the cusp of its own makeover, a two-stage technology modernisation programme designed to do away with the dusty terminals you might encounter in corner shops or the supermarket. It is also meant to usher in a new era between the lottery and retailers, with a proper customer relationship management system, for example.
The first stage of the transformation, the introduction of a new core gaming system, sounds daunting. It involves more than 30 different systems, 100 suppliers and the transfer of tens of thousands of retailer records and millions of transactions. “There isn’t anywhere in the world that this scale of project has ever been done. No other retailer has 43,500 stores,” Vidler says.
Given the high stakes, there have been lots of meetings with the Gambling Commission. “It’s massive; it does have to be done correctly.”
The technology upgrade is set to take place from August 2 to August 4 and will take National Lottery services offline from 11pm on that Saturday until late Monday morning. For 36 hours, players won’t be able to log in to their online accounts, buy draw tickets or claim prizes in-store or online, but this roll of the dice should pave the way for new games and better player protection measures and will be followed by a new app and website.
Vidler, 59, is no stranger to modernisation which runs like a thread through her 30-year career in media, marketing and technology. She is particularly proud of spearheading a turnaround at the music label EMI. As we order our mains — roast cod for her and courgette risotto for me — I ask how is she finding Allywn, where she has been for the best part of two years.
“The most surprising thing has been the absolutely unswerving commitment to raise money for good causes from everyone in the building. That sense of purpose, I don’t think I’d realised how powerful that is. I knew about the [funding for] the Eden Project, the Paralympics, the Olympics but I didn’t know just how much money goes into lots of community projects. Every postcode has benefited. I had no real understanding of the impact it has on society.”
She gives the example of a charity in London’s Elephant and Castle called Working Chance which works with women who have been in prison. “It supports women with convictions to try and find a new job. I learnt so much about the problems they have. They have to have a job before they can get a flat and get custody of their children back, even if they’ve only had a couple of months in prison. It is devastating.”
To my surprise, the lottery has no say over where its funds are distributed. There are 12 designated distributors with 40 per cent going to community projects, 20 per cent to sport, 20 per cent to arts and 20 per cent to heritage. Yet Vidler would like to highlight the work being done and how different parts of the country have benefited.
As we tuck into our tasty mains — my pea green risotto is suitably summery and the buttery carrots, not usually my favourite vegetable, are divine — she tells me about the Glasshouse in Gateshead. “It’s a big music centre. The council wanted to make it so that everyone could enjoy music and get involved locally, not just a privileged few. They’ve generated £681 million in terms of economic benefit on the back of that.”
She believes her customers would like to see where the millions raised from lottery games are being spent. “Once we’ve upgraded the app, we will know where you live and can tell you what’s going on in your area. I think that’ll be reassuring and rewarding.”
The lottery, which is played by 30 million people a year, may be at a technological inflection point but Allwyn has made a lot of other changes since it took over as operator. Awareness of this seems low to me, yet the company has invested more than £350 million in the UK since it won the licence battle, a decision that triggered a flurry of litigation against the Gambling Commission from disgruntled losers.
In the first three months of this year, Allwyn UK delivered a 3 per cent year-on-year sales increase, bolstered by strong performances from “EuroMillions” and “Instant Win” games. Forty new instant win games have launched this year; there are raffle prizes such as holidays on top of the jackpot.
https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/companies/article/andria-vidlers-bold-national-lottery-reboot-9f2qrlrqz