34 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2022 Much like the tip of an iceberg, these solutions were just the visible result, the end product. Below the surface and not always seen, however, was the enormous amount of research, creativity, and science that went into the design and development of these groundbreaking innovations. An important component of this largely unseen process was the company’s early use of business intelligence. Scientific Games pioneered the use of productized business intelligence in the lottery industry when it launched its patented MAP (Marketing-Analysis-Planning) platform more than two decades ago (2001). Jennifer Welshons, Scientific Games Chief Marketing Officer, was an analyst with Scientific Games at that time and worked with the company’s leadership for nearly 18 months to bring MAP 1.0 to market: “From the very beginning, we have strived as a company to leverage applications from specific parts of our business to enable the business as a whole. In this case, our racing division had a handicapping tool for horse racing and we immediately saw how the underlying structure of that tool could be applied to instant scratch game data.” That version of MAP 1.0, a secure, interactive database designed to help Scientific Games work with their lottery partners to make the best instant product marketing and planning decisions possible, became the backbone of what today has become a robust portfolio of advanced business intelligence tools. Welshons is quick to point out, however, that the company was using “business intelligence” before today’s wide array of BI platforms was available. “At its heart, business intelligence is simply using data to drive better business decisions. Today’s BI platforms have made this easier and more accessible for businesses, but I would say that what Scientific Games did in the late 90s – creating the first State of the States product – was absolutely ‘business intelligence.’ It was all very manual at first, but once the technology caught up, we were able to pivot all of that manual data analysis to MAP, which accelerated our ability to derive meaningful, actionable insights that our partners can use to drive their business. Continually tying the data we collect with emerging BI technology – that’s our commitment to keeping the science inside.” Evolving the Science MAP may have been the company’s first formal business intelligence tool, but it certainly hasn’t been its last. In fact, MAP served as a catalyst for many of the company’s other business intelligence innovations, the most powerful being Infuse, the company’s current enterprise business intelligence platform. Cameron Garrett, Scientific Games Vice President of Analytics and Insights, describes Infuse this way: “Infuse takes a 360-degree view of our partners’ business to include data from games, players, retailers, terminals, and logistics. And Infuse doesn’t just look at sales data, but sales data combined with loyalty data, demographic data, data across multiple jurisdictions, and more. Infuse is intuitive and easy-to-use, featuring dashboards and customized analytics that can be deployed immediately to impact sales.” Scientific Games’ history of building its own business intelligence platforms was partly born from the unique nature of the lottery business, making off-the-shelf BI solutions less effective. But that doesn’t mean the company has a “not invented here” mentality. As Scientific Games continues to expand its digital and interactive portfolio, it makes sense to partner with companies that have an equal passion for innovation in this space. Scientific Games is especially excited about its partnership with Optimove, a leader in the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) category and one of the most trusted CRM providers in the gaming and lottery industries. With Optimove as a partner, Scientific Games provides CRM services to 10 U.S. lotteries with more on the way. Scientific Games’ expanding digital and interactive portfolio of products has also given the company an opportunity to employ a variety of data-driven responsible gaming measures. Many of the company’s digital platforms utilize various algorithms to help predict problem gaming behavior which can trigger a variety of optional “guardrails” such as spending limits,
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