By Kate Northrop
The Texas Lottery announced Thursday that its drawings supervisor, who helped lead her team to design the first "in-house" draw studio, was presented with a top industry award for her significant contributions to the lottery through her exceptional job performance.
Conchita Daniel, who is responsible for pioneering optimal traditional draw practices in the industry, received the 2021 Powers Award at the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries (NASPL) digital conference, NASPL DeskCon.
The conference was held virtually for the second year in a row due to COVID-19 precautions, which, on the other hand, gave plenty of reason to highlight Daniel's exceptional ability to adapt and lead the draw team during a time of uncertainty.
"The COVID-19 pandemic brought especially daunting challenges for the Texas Lottery draw team, and there was no one better suited to lead them than Conchita Daniel," Texas Lottery Executive Director Gary Grief said in a press release. "Understanding and addressing the safety concerns of her staff and thinking outside the box to split her team into two separate work groups, working tirelessly to maintain COVID protocols and dealing with vendors to make needed safety modifications — Conchita dealt with every challenge head-on. Most importantly, Conchita's leadership during this period meant that every Texas Lottery drawing occurred securely and with integrity. For these many reasons, I am proud to see Conchita's efforts recognized by NASPL and congratulate her on receiving one of this year's Powers Awards."
The Powers Awards are presented every year to recognize "the significant contributions lottery and lottery vendor employees have made through exceptional job performance," the Lottery explains. The award's namesake, the late Edward J. Powers, is known as the "Father of U.S. Lotteries" and dedicated over 25 years in the industry to help "define the most effective organizational structures that have become a blueprint for today's lotteries."
Daniel first joined the Texas Lottery in 2000. For over two decades, she held various responsibilities that include managing day-to-day operations and budgets, securing contracts with vendors, and crafting state government policies and procedures.
However, her most crucial work might arguably lie within her proven track record of completely transforming the well-oiled, traditional in-house lottery ball drawings that the Texas Lottery is known for.
Daniel led the draw team that designed the first "in-house" draw studio and orchestrated the big move from a small rented soundstage at a remote location to Lottery headquarters in Austin, where its daily drawings are currently conducted.
In April, she is set to lead the team in another big move, which will this time see the in-house draw studio relocated to a new, state-of-the-art location at a new headquarters building that is currently under construction.
In addition to overseeing the physical location and design of the draw studio, Daniel is credited for developing a robust, modern Business Continuity Program that serves as a model in the lottery industry. Daniel personally welcomed various members of the Texas State government to the drawing studio to hear about the procedures, and lottery drawings staff from all over the world toured the premises to learn from them.
Daniel currently manages a team of 17 employees who are responsible for the operation of the Lottery's eight different draw games, some occurring as many as four times a day, six days a week.
Congratulations Conchita on this prestigious award. Would love to see what the new facility for the Texas lottery will look like. Strong leadership there.
I hope RNG states are seeing this and making plans to change back to real ball drawings. This means YOU Delaware!
Not sure what they are paying Ms Daniel. But based her list of responsibilities, she has gotten more done in her state than all the politicians combined. Great to see someone laser focused on how to make the product better while at the same time trying to make sure her staff was safe during Covid. Sounds like her award was richly deserved.
Great point!!
I wonder if our retired Director of Kentucky Lottery was still there during Covid-19 if he would have entertained RNG like we have now. I think not! Gone are the good old day of mechanical ball drawings for Pick 3 & 4 as well as Cashball 225. Now with KENO that has to be RNG since drawings are every four minutes. Though it is somewhat labor intensive weighing the balls I'd think the thought among players is that we prefer mechanical ball drawings.
The website isn't great. I deduct many of his points for the frontpage alone.
Texas should introduce online services. It would be very convenient for players, especially rural players, who don't live close to a store. It would also raise much-needed additional revenue for the state.
Lottery players in Texas actually do have a way to buy tickets online. We published a story about it in January: https://www.lotterypost.com/news/335244
Here are direct links for Texas players to buy specific games online:
True Todd, but I think the point was the Texas Lottery itself should administer on-line purchases, not some outside company that charges a service fee.
Just looked up your lottery, and like Massachusetts has an app to check numbers but still no direct on-line sales.
Luckily here can play all of the draw games on-line that they offer as well as the National ones, i.e. Powerball, Mega Millions and Lucky For Life. They just added Pick 3 & 4 to the mix and sent them a FB question why can't one play Pick 3 for mid-day and night drawings. They replied so the retailers wouldn't get hurt too bad. Found how to circumvent that, play midday and then go back and play same #'s for night drawings. As for instant games the on-line ones are different than the machine/retailer stock. Though it is super convenient the retailer gets more of my business than on-line. Recollection comes in to play that when they went on-line specifically Pick 3/4 would not be offered on-line. Years went by and here we are.
Top off the old noggin knows of only GA & VA that offer true lottery run on-line sales. Certainly there has to be more...just not going to go to each state and see! It is the way to go!
I respectfully disagree. Every state does online sales differently. Some states will choose to do sales directly, and others (like Texas and New Jersey, for example), use a third party model to do it.
All state lotteries are regulated by their legislatures, and those legislatures impose different restrictions and local priorities. So each lottery needs to work in whichever way works best within their state.
So if Texas uses a courier model because that's what works in their state, then that's good for players, because they get the online option. And because it's something that Texas purposely allows (as opposed to a courier operating in a legal "gray" area, absent official oversight), that is something players can be confident in.
Edit: I would modify this only to agree that in a "perfect world" all states would directly offer an online purchase option. My comments here take into account the "real world" in which perfect is the enemy of good.
"sent them a FB question why can't one play Pick 3 for mid-day and night drawings."
Read this on the KY Online site:
There is no legal Internet Online lottery, but you can play Online in states that provide it by being physically within state borders. Don't really see why someone would drive to another state just to play Online, but to each their own.
Well where you highlighted is wrong. KLC themselves told me you cannot play Midday or Evening SIMULTANEOUSLY and I just came off their site before responding. You have to play them individually whereas on the IGT machines you get the option as on the play slip to do them together. Like they said they did it this way to help out the retailers. Not sure if it does or not! It is just an extra step and really a non-issue but I stand by their response to me. They know me well from promotions and emails and the good old days of the KY State Fair. Keep on saying I want to meet everyone when I hit the big one. Unfortunately off the table thanks to Novel Coronavirus and RNG their invitation to watch a live drawing is gone for good. That's my fault, not theirs.
This is in response to Stack 47. KLC will get notified from me to fix this simple oversight!
Here is their PM to me in part "You are right that the options to play Pick 3 and Pick 4 online is a little different than in-store. This is because we still wanted to support our hard working retailers while giving our players the convenience of play on line." I do give you credit Stack 47 that the wording they use is misleading in the highlighted section. It should have read Midday or Evening!!
Read this on the Ky Lottery site too.
How to Play Pick 4
Don't know why you can't play the "next" game for 2 drawings, but that option is available on "LET'S PLAY".
There is a "next" option but it only applies to 1 drawing. When I clicked 2 drawing the "next" option changed to "evening". It's an Online glitch that most players probably won't notice.