Four of Europe’s leading lottery organisations have come together to set up a joint-venture company that they hope will improve their collective lottery product.
The new company has been named the Lotteries Entertainment Innovation Alliance (LEIA) and is made up of four separate bodies: Danske Lotteri Spil, from Denmark, Française des Jeux of France, Norway’s Norsk Tipping and Finnish operator Veikkaus.
All four companies have sought and been granted the permission of their national gaming authorities to set up the joint company. Under the terms of the partnership, all four lottery organisations will pool their resources in an attempt to develop a more efficient lottery gaming product, with a wider market appeal across Europe. They are also hoping that the larger online presence will enable them to tackle common problems that they’ve all faced individually, as well as providing opportunities for new innovations, enabling them to produce and offer new games for lottery players.
Value Propositions
Morten Eriksen of Norsk Tipping, has been chosen to be the initial CEO of the new venture, which will be registered in Norway. Eriksen worked in the telecom industry for over 20 years before spending five years in the Norwegian lottery sector.
Speaking about the new partnership, the CEO of Veikkaus, Olli Sarekoski, who has been appointed as chairman of LEIA, said that the venture was necessary because of changing lottery customer behaviour, which required faster and more flexible development from lottery operators:
We are happy to announce this new joint venture and I believe we will be stronger together in the long term in delivering strong value propositions to each market.”
