A new direction

The new WLA strategic plan, plays a key part in achieving this. Begun by my predecessor, and developed over the course of a year, this project reached a significant milestone in 2024, with the start of the roll-out phase.  

We focused on sensitizing our members and the broader community to our new purpose, vision and mission: to support member organizations in providing socially responsible offerings to generate funds for positive societal impact; be recognized as the global authority on the lottery and sports betting industry, setting standard for excellence in our sector, and finally, to provide value to our diverse member base through key products, services and sharing of knowledge.

Our communication campaigns detailed some of the benefits that the new strategy will bring to our members. For instance, we will enhance services and develop more tools to assist them in delivering responsible, secure player products and environments. Another key highlight was our goal to protect industry integrity, and tackle important issues, such as illegal gaming and betting.

Equally, our committees contributed greatly towards delivering on our new strategy. WLA facilitates member Responsible Gaming certification through the work of the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee (CSRC), which maintains the WLA Responsible Gaming Framework and coordinates member RG certification.  

We partnered with DigitalRG.com, a platform which streamlines the RG process in one place, and made this tool freely available to first-time Level 2 applicants, along with personalized support. We assumed the license fee for Level 3 and 4 submissions and secured a perpetual license for the Independent Assessment Panel to use the platform to evaluate submissions. By October, almost 80 percent of all WLA members completed Level 2 RG certification, and the overall positive feedback underscored the simplicity of the process on the platform.

In our digital world, we must stay abreast of advancing technologies and assist members to address related challenges. Our Security and Risk Management Committee (SRMC), developed, and maintains the WLA Security Control Standard. Certification to the standard helps our members ensure their operations, products and services are secure, and allows them to demonstrate adherence to best industry practices.  

This year the SRMC delivered the latest iteration of the standard – WLA SCS:2024 – with important updates, including: clearer guidance for cloud security control and how to deal with security for suppliers and managed services, in hosted data centers, or the cloud. It added new sections for e-sports, horse race betting, online games, virtual betting, and Random Number Generators, which are at the heart of all lottery game operations. Work also began to develop profiles for key risk categories, which describe a risk, detail its drivers, and offer mitigation strategies.

Our reputation is under constant attack from illegal gaming and betting operators around the world. The Illegal Lottery and Betting Committee (ILBC) advises member lotteries on how to best fight unauthorized lotteries within the regulatory framework of their respective jurisdictions.  

This year it published the WLA Working definitions, to provide a common understanding of what lottery and betting operations are considered to be legal, and illegal. It describes both types for: illegal gambling operators, lottery courier services operators, betting on lotteries operators and commercial gaming brokers.

The ILBC also published a best practice guide for Protecting the IP of multi-jurisdictional games, in Europe and North America, detailing IP ownership of each multijurisdictional game, with a list of measures trademark owners to take, in case of infringement.  

The ILBC initiated an important project, with the University of Lausanne, to develop a standardized, scalable and reliable method to estimate the illegal gambling market. As a result, international experts from the regulated lottery and sports betting ecosystem, have agreed to pool respective expertise and resources, to elaborate a common methodology, based on a standardized definition.

Increased instances of match fixing negatively impact sports betting. With over 50 percent of WLA members offer sports betting, our Betting Integrity for Sports and Horse Racing Committee (BISHRC) works towards safeguarding their reputations, by combating manipulation and match fixing of sports and horse racing betting.

To this end, BISHRC published The Horse Betting - Marketing Guidelines for Achieving Responsible and Competitive Offers and the Anti-money laundering (AML) best practices for lottery and sports betting operators. The latter provides useful measures to better protect members from potential money launderers.  

It also continued collaborating with partners, including the Council of Europe on the Addressing Competitions' Manipulation Together (ACT) project, and the United Lotteries for Integrity in Sport (ULIS), co-organizing the WLA-EL-ULIS Sports Integrity Seminar held in Lausanne in November, attracting participants from across the global lotteries, sports and sports betting ecosystem, to discuss key sports integrity topics.

Our events, including those with Regional Association partners, attracted over 2000 participants from around the world, and culminated in the landmark, biennial World Lottery Summit, in Paris, organized with host lottery Groupe FDJ. It was a great success, from the venue, tradeshow, and business program with expert industry and external speakers, to the social program at extraordinary venues. This unique event inspired our global community to carry on its important work to improve lives and societies around the world.

It remains for me to thank all our Members, Contributors, and staff for their commitment and contributions, which enable us to support the global lottery and sports betting community in achieving its goal of raising funds for good causes worldwide. I look forward to our continued cooperation in 2025.

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