PROVIDENCE, R.I. — GTECH Corp. has launched the lottery developer network, a game development program, which it says "lays the foundation for significant advancement within the lottery industry."
The gaming subsidiary of Rome's Lottomatica Group SpA described its LDN project as the lottery industry's first open-development platform.
The platform enables casual and social game developers to work to build games on their own, which can later be offered for real-money gaming on official and regulated lottery platforms.
"The most powerful aspect of the LDN is that it will open up interactive game development to a much wider group, including other lottery vendors and commercial content providers, to offer truly new opportunities and attract light, lapsed and new players to lottery eInstants," GTECH Product Marketing Vice President Paul Riley said in prepared remarks.
Previously, casual and social game developers were unable to use their work in the lottery field due to closed platforms and strict government regulations. According to GTECH, the LDN solves these issues by including everything a developer could need to create a lottery game, including documentation, design templates, user forums and application programming interfaces.
"Anyone who owns a smart TV, or a media streaming box, or even a modern game console will have numerous applications that are available to the consumer," said Riley. "The applications are available because the providers of these services published APIs that allowed developers to embed that functionality in these net-enabled appliances."
"The LDN will bring that same level of presence to lottery products through significantly increased volume and new content variety," Riley added.
According to GTECH, once a designer submits a game on the LDN, the company puts the program through rigorous testing to make sure it adheres to lottery security standards. Once a game is approved, it will be added to the "game market," which is similar to Apple's App Store or Android's Google Play market.
On the game market, "lotteries will now be able to "check out" a game — its odds, price structure, prize payouts, etc. — and then quickly get the game launched for live cash wagering," said a GTECH release announcing the creation of LDN.
"The LDN lets GTECH do what it does best in terms of guaranteeing uncompromising system integration, geo-filtering, and geo-location, while opening the previously locked doors of game development to the full spectrum of game content providers." GTECH President and CEO Jaymin B. Patel, said in prepared remarks.
"The launch of the LDN is yet another example of how GTECH is providing innovative solutions to the lottery industry and increasing collaboration both within and outside of our industry," added Patel.
The lottery developer network is currently operational and will be fully live at the World Lottery Summit in Montreal from Sept. 9-12.