$1.6B lottery frenzy? No problem for IGT

At the height of last month’s Powerball mania, when the jackpot reached $1.6 billion, one Rhode Island company was kept busy processing a half-million lottery transactions per minute during peak hours.

Indeed, IGT, formerly GTECH, is a Providence-based gaming technology company that handles about 80 percent of all Powerball wagers made in North America, owning about 185,000 terminals in 27 lottery jurisdictions. The company has provided assistance to the Powerball lottery game since its inception in 1992.

But while the game’s concept has largely gone unchanged throughout the years, IGT’s behind-the-scenes work has become increasingly sophisticated as technology evolves rapidly and cybersecurity becomes ever more important.

“It’s become more complex,” Matt Whalen, IGT’s chief technology officer for North America lottery, said pointedly.

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“The lottery used to be a [simple] terminal speaking to a simple communication system – in the old days of dial-up modems – and connect to a very simplistic central system,” he said. “Now you have terminals that are glorified, industrial built and are very sophisticated.”

For those unfamiliar with how the lottery works, terminals – where consumers buy Powerball tickets – are found in retail stores, such as a grocers, gas stations and convenience stores, along with other locations. Each lottery terminal is connected to a central, secured system through a communication device, which varies by location.

When a wishful consumer makes a Powerball wager, choosing either a set of unique or random numbers, the terminal sends his or her request through the communication lines to the central system, where the wager is checked for syntax and stored locally. Once cleared and stored, the central system responds to the terminal, letting the retailer know the ticket can be printed.

The entire process, albeit rather involved, typically takes about three seconds, according to Whalen. He says the technology upholds despite the number of wagers being made per minute. The software was put to the test during last month’s Powerball craze, which was unprecedented in the history of the game.

“We’ve been in business for three decades providing these types of systems and I’ve been with the company for 22 years,” Whalen said. “Nobody had the forethought of having over a billion-dollar lottery drawing. And I can only speak for our company’s technology, but the number of transactions [was] well within the level that we’ve architected the system [to handle].”

Besides the sheer volume of wagers, however, there’s always an issue of security, which has equally become more complex. High-profile data breaches suffered by large corporations, such as Target Corp., Anthem and Adobe, to name a few in the last few years, have forced top executives to discuss cybersecurity needs in boardrooms throughout the country.

But Whalen says the issue has always been front and center at IGT, which aims to stay ahead of the curve and maintain a secure system.

The gaming-technology company doesn’t only rely on internal tech experts to test IGT systems, but hires outside security firms to try to break into its systems and assist in scanning detection.

In Rhode Island, the company maintains a long-term contract with the state’s Lottery Commission to run its system. Massachusetts currently uses IGT software and equipment, but operates its own Powerball system internally.

Whalen, who started out as a software engineer supporting the New York state lottery, is now responsible for strategic direction, research and development and ongoing operations.

Because of IGT and its global reach, Whalen travels to different states and countries to test out systems and work with different lottery groups. During the Powerball frenzy, however, he had to cancel his trip to the West Coast and rush back to the Ocean State, where he set up a “proactive war room” to monitor the health of the company’s systems.

Whalen had more than 400 people on standby to handle any hiccups in the system, but was happy to report IGT technology was secure, adding that the heightened excitement surrounding the game made the frenzy all the more fun.

“When you’re in this industry for over two decades, the last thing you want to be is on the outside looking in,” he said. •

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