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Tag: Playwin

  • Playwin to start with Maharashtra, Karnataka lottery shortly

    Playwin to start with Maharashtra, Karnataka lottery shortly

    Spurred by stupendous success of its Playwin Lottery, Subhash Chandra’s Essel group is moving its golden goose to fresh pastures.

    A variant of Playwin’s Super Lotto which is under the Sikkim state lottery, will be introduced in the next two months with the state lotteries of the governments of Maharashtra and Karnataka. The coming week will also see corporate tie-ups and co-branding exercises by Playwin, says Playwin marketing vice-president Sanjay Yashroi.

    The company is also planning to double the number of its terminals from the present 700 in the next two to three months, says Yashroi. While Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala are the strongest states in terms of response to Super Lotto, it’s the five north-eastern states including Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh which are still to catch on, he says. Sikkim itself has only 10 terminals, with eight located in Gangtok itself.

    Response to the online lottery has registered an increase of 150 per cent over the base in the nine weeks since it started, says Yashroi. While the first draw drew three million responses, the latest one on 23 May drew 7.5 million responses.

    The latest winner of the jackpot of Rs 86.1 million announced yesterday, remains a mystery though. Yashroi claims that the winner is either still unaware of the results or is too overawed to react to the news and hence has not come forward to claim the booty. The online system enables the company to track the winning ticket to the city in which it was sold instantly, but Playwin is not divulging the details till the winner volunteers to collect his prize, Yashroi said.

  • Playwin fever spreads

    Playwin fever spreads

    The Playwin buzz is catching on.

    The Essel group promoted online lottery fever is spreading through Mumbai city, if the success of its print campaign in today’s newspapers is any indication. Eveninger Mid Day, which carried coupons allowing free tickets, had two extra print runs to cater to the overwhelming demand, according to local vendors.

    The “trial-inducing sampling” as Playwin Infrawest CEO Sanjay Das terms it, has obviously clicked. Similar coupons were printed in most dailies in the country today, including The Times of India, all Marathi, Tamil, Bengali, Hindi newspapers (in Punjab and Haryana). The ploy to ensure that the new concept catches on is working – the number of Playwin tickets sold is anywhere between 600,000 and 1 million daily, says Das. While Das says that all segments of society have been lured by Playwin’s novel concept of live, credible and transparent lottery, industry sources say it is in the ‘not-so-premium’ areas that ticket sales have really sky-rocketed.

    Needless to say, the lottery is ensuring viewership for sister channel Zee TV as well. Zee’s new show celebrity talk show Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai, which has been receiving good reviews, has an added attraction in that the weekly Super Lotto results are aired on the show.

    Das says that while only 30 to 37 persons got five of the six numbers right during the live draws, ensuring prize money of upto Rs 20 million; a total of Rs 50 million will be given away this Thursday. The money will be divided among the number of five digit number winners equally, thus giving an impetus to lottery buyers to gamble even more.

    Word of mouth publicity, banners at strategic places in metros and extensive advertising across the Zee network are all part of the multi- media strategy that has been put into place to promote Playwin. According to reports, the company has invested nearly Rs 3000 million on machines manufactured by International Lottery and Totalizator Systems of the US and has a nearly Rs 350 million ad budget.

    But it seems a small price to pay. Accounting major PriceWaterhouse Coopers estimates that the turnover of Indian online lottery will be nearly Rs 200 billion at the end of the first year and Rs 1,000 billion by the end of the fifth. Zee, it seems, has truely hit its jackpot.

  • Playwin fever spreads

    Playwin fever spreads

    The Playwin buzz is catching on.

    The Essel group promoted online lottery fever is spreading through Mumbai city, if the success of its print campaign in today’s newspapers is any indication. Eveninger Mid Day, which carried coupons allowing free tickets, had two extra print runs to cater to the overwhelming demand, according to local vendors.

    The “trial-inducing sampling” as Playwin Infrawest CEO Sanjay Das terms it, has obviously clicked. Similar coupons were printed in most dailies in the country today, including The Times of India, all Marathi, Tamil, Bengali, Hindi newspapers (in Punjab and Haryana). The ploy to ensure that the new concept catches on is working – the number of Playwin tickets sold is anywhere between 600,000 and 1 million daily, says Das. While Das says that all segments of society have been lured by Playwin’s novel concept of live, credible and transparent lottery, industry sources say it is in the ‘not-so-premium’ areas that ticket sales have really sky-rocketed. 

    Needless to say, the lottery is ensuring viewership for sister channel Zee TV as well. Zee’s new show celebrity talk show Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai, which has been receiving good reviews, has an added attraction in that the weekly Super Lotto results are aired on the show.

    Das says that while only 30 to 37 persons got five of the six numbers right during the live draws, ensuring prize money of upto Rs 20 million; a total of Rs 50 million will be given away this Thursday. The money will be divided among the number of five digit number winners equally, thus giving an impetus to lottery buyers to gamble even more.

    Word of mouth publicity, banners at strategic places in metros and extensive advertising across the Zee network are all part of the multi- media strategy that has been put into place to promote Playwin. According to reports, the company has invested nearly Rs 3000 million on machines manufactured by International Lottery and Totalizator Systems of the US and has a nearly Rs 350 million ad budget. 

    But it seems a small price to pay. Accounting major PriceWaterhouse Coopers estimates that the turnover of Indian online lottery will be nearly Rs 200 billion at the end of the first year and Rs 1,000 billion by the end of the fifth. Zee, it seems, has truely hit its jackpot.

  • Playwin Infravest’s online lottery launches today

    Playwin Infravest’s online lottery launches today

    Lottery may never be the same again from 6 pm today.

    The Essel group promoted Super Lotto goes online at retail centres across the country from this evening, with Sikkim Lottery doing the honours initially. All 14 Indian states that legally allow the sale of lotteries have geared up to cash in on the growing online lottery business.

    Playwin’s Super Lotto comes with a jackpot of Rs 20 million. Prizes can be won from Rs 60 onwards after buying a ticket worth Rs 10 in all states except in Sikkim, where the ticket is priced at Rs 20. The country’s first online “game of fortune” is being plugged aggressively with free ticket coupons for the first two days being supplied in ads in major newspapers.

    Super Lotto claims complete transparency with computerisation at every stage. The inaugural draw will be held on 29 March at Gangtok and the results will be telecast live on Zee TV. The tickets can be bought at 300 departmental stores, grocery shops, ice-cream parlours, cyber cafes, apparel shops, restaurants, electronic goods stores, chemists and STD booths, each set up at a cost of Rs 300,000.

    As per the license agreements between Playwin and the state governments, while the lotteries run on a virtual online network, they will also have a tangible presence in the form of actual tickets, which will have the number sequence of tickets bought by customers. Twenty-one per cent of the venture’s profits go to the state, 50 per cent towards the prize monies and 7-8 per cent towards the retail and distribution network. Playwin’s own share of the pie will be around 3-4 per cent of the sales, a part of which will be ploughed into a trust promoted by the Essel group.

    While the paper lottery market in India currently stands at Rs 500,000 million, Playwin is investing around Rs 2000 million in developing the online gaming infrastructure in four states in the country in association with the state of the art technology provider, US based International Lottery Totalizer System (ILTS), which has installed such computerised wagering systems worldwide in 18 countries.

    In addition to the state government audit, Ernst & Young too will audit and validate the online lottery process, say officials.