One national lottery. Three strategic products
For gambling and lottery operators: how Veikkaus, Finland's national lottery and gaming operator, used GameLayer to engage members with responsible gaming, show citizens where the money goes, and educate its retail network.
Each with its own job, on one platform
As a state-owned operator, Veikkaus wanted to give website visitors a reason to stay, communicate its social impact, engage members with responsible gaming tools, and train its retail network, whose staff aren't Veikkaus employees. Each challenge became its own product, with Veikkaus' commitment to responsible gaming most evident in Points. All three were powered by the same platform.
"Veikkaus Points rewards all the participants equally; gaming does not lead to rewards."
A member playing a lot of Lotto and a member playing only a little were treated the same. Points sat within Veikkaus' own wider responsibility measures, including self-bans, a model designed to keep marketing away from customers showing signs of risk, and a responsibility evaluation of new games.
Making responsible gaming tools engaging
The problem
Visitors came to the website to buy a ticket and left straight away. Veikkaus also needed to engage members with its responsible gaming tools, a requirement for the state-run lottery, and to educate people about its role in society and the causes it funds.
What was built
An opt-in gamified loyalty programme that rewarded engagement with Veikkaus content and responsible gaming tools, not gambling. After an external pilot, it opened to all website users. Missions ranged from watching a video on the week's good cause to completing a problem gambling self-assessment (plus many actions in between). Members earned levels, achievements and points to:
- redeem for small non-gambling prizes, such as cinema tickets and coffee cups
- enter raffles for bigger prizes, such as bicycles and gift cards
- open mystery boxes for instant wins
Missions were updated frequently to motivate members to return to the website, because once missions and prizes had gone, they were gone. After a successful v1, Points was relaunched to support Veikkaus' merger with RAY and Fintoto, and became more deeply integrated with its loyalty and CRM programmes.
Responsible gaming results
Veikkaus used the self-assessment data to develop its responsible gaming algorithm. Points also won the WLA Best Innovation in Responsible Gaming award at Level 4.
How the programme scaled
The refreshed version of Points: status, ranking and missions, including the weekly good cause and responsibility missions.
A set of winter sport themed event missions in Points.
Taking the programme into the real world
The problem
Veikkaus struggled to educate citizens about the role of a national lottery and the societal benefits of its revenue, including its national and local contributions.
What was built
It began as a walking challenge, piloted over midsummer in Finland. The results led Veikkaus to launch it as Check Points, a location-based experience fully integrated with the Veikkaus mobile app. It guided members to points of interest and rewarded them for engaging with the brand whilst there.
- Mystery boxes could only be found and opened in the right place, at points of sale and beneficiary locations
- Members were rewarded immediately, and lucky members won small prizes (like an ice cream or cup of coffee) to claim at the point of sale
- Every 1,000 steps earned the right to open one mystery box, promoting a healthy lifestyle
The initial pilot: 4 weeks over midsummer
The midsummer pilot, Mobiilikävelyn SM-kisa, a mobile walking championship: the opening screen, step challenges and an opened mystery box.
Check Points in the Veikkaus mobile app: the opening screen, challenges and a location-based beneficiary campaign (football tickets).
Educating the people who sell the products
The problem
It was difficult to provide and track effective product training across numerous third-party retail outlets, in a network of about 3,900 points of sale, especially when the range of products was vast and changing constantly.
What was built
Encouraged by the success of Points, Veikkaus launched Sales Points (Myyjä Points in Finland): an education platform for retail sales staff. It used a similar model to Points, with missions that taught staff about the wide range of Veikkaus products: they completed missions, earned points and redeemed rewards. Sales Points was a very different product, with its own proposition, audience, stakeholders and budget, yet it ran on the same platform as Points.
- It ran as a web app and in the sales terminals, with access restricted to employees and sales staff
- A task needed at least 50% to pass, and could be repeated to improve the score
- Rewards went to individuals based on activity, product knowledge and brand advocacy
Sales Points: the home page, then a feedback mission, the completed task and the achievement it earned.
Built to keep running, not just to launch
The concept was created and owned by Veikkaus and powered by GameLayer. A product like Points is never a one-off launch: it has to keep running, and keep changing, on a stable and scalable platform. Points grew from a pilot with about 8,000 users to 800K+ members, and had processed 750M API events by the time it reached 500K members.
Content stayed fresh through periodic mission drops, with more than 500 missions in the dashboard at one stage, seasonal content and campaigns such as the Euros football championship and a Christmas Advent calendar with a new mission every day during December. Today, your own team can run this in the dashboard, with GameLayer on hand to help.
"We had some initial ideas on how to gamify our web service and engage our visitors better, however, we lacked the technical solution to make it happen. [GameLayer] has enabled us to bring those ideas to reality quickly and easily."
Veikkaus
- Owned the concept
- Provided the content for missions, etc
- Developed the front end
- Provided the prizes
- Integrated the API and sent player events to GameLayer
GameLayer
- Hosted and managed the platform, in the cloud within Europe adhering to GDPR
- Created the mechanics and managed them, and the content, in the dashboard
- Processed the logic, including prize management (eligibility, stock limits, etc)
- Designed the gamification structure and supported strategy and concept work
The GameLayer dashboard today, shown with content from ROAM Helsinki.
Start small, prove it, then extend
Veikkaus began with an internal pilot and built up in stages as each step proved itself, picking up a WLA award and a WLA runner-up place along the way.
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1
Prove
- Points internal pilot
- Points external pilot
-
2
Launch
- Points opened to all website users
- 150K members in the first full year
-
3
Relaunch
- WLA award Best Innovation in Responsible Gaming
- Points relaunch after the merger
-
4
Go mobile
- Walking challenge pilot over midsummer
- WLA runner-up Digital Marketing Innovation
- Check Points in the mobile app
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5
Go internal
- Sales Points beta launch
- Points reached 800K+ members and 35M+ missions completed over its lifetime
How members responded
Members came away understanding the brand and its products better, and kept coming back week after week.
Understanding and sentiment
Engagement
What operators can take from this
Make the tools worth using
Completed problem gambling self-assessments rose from 2,500 to 25,000 a month once the self-assessment became a mission, with status and rewards for completing it periodically. Veikkaus then used that data to develop its responsible gaming algorithm.
Separate rewards from play
In Veikkaus Points, gaming did not lead to rewards, so heavier and lighter members were rewarded equally. Members earned by taking part, not by spending.
Show the public good
Points gave beneficiaries 1,000% more visibility, with a weekly good cause to learn about. Check Points took members to the causes in person and also made these beneficiaries known at the local level.
Make responsible gaming worth engaging with
Tell us about your requirements and let's explore together how GameLayer could power your next responsible gaming programme.