Texas Lottery wins two awards at NASPL Conference

The Texas Lottery was recently bestowed with two awards at the 2024 North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries (NASPL) conference, held in Kansas City, Missouri, from September 9 to 12. These awards recognized some of the innovative and creative work across the North American lottery sector. 

In addition to the two award wins, the Texas Lottery earned finalist recognition in eight categories, ranging from TV and radio advertising to digital media and corporate communications.

Ryan Mindell, executive director of the Texas Lottery Commission, stated: “The creative efforts of our in-house advertising and communications teams, along with those of our partners and vendors, are essential to our success in promoting our games to our players, and ultimately in generating billions of dollars in revenue for public education and veterans in Texas.”

One of the key awards the Texas Lottery secured was for its launch event of the Lady Luck 777 scratch ticket game. The event, held at an H-E-B store in Austin, Texas, featured a performance by country music star Martina McBride and was supported by IGT and Atlas Experiences. 

The Lady Luck promotion gave participants the chance to enter a second-chance contest, offering the winner an all-expenses-paid trip to a private McBride concert at Dolly Parton’s Celebrity Theater in Dollywood, Tennessee. This launch won the Hickey Award for Retail Promotion.

The second major recognition came in the Radio Advertising category for the “Nose Hair Trimmer” ad, which humorously promoted the Texas Lottery’s Holiday Scratch ticket series. The ad suggested scratch tickets as an alternative to awkward holiday gift-giving, with a playful jingle, “Fa-la-la-la-la, la lots of cash!” The ad was produced by the Texas Lottery's in-house team and was part of a broader campaign aimed at holiday engagement.

In addition to these two wins, the Texas Lottery’s $1,000,000 Cash Blast scratch ticket game was a finalist for the Buddy Roogow Innovation Award for Best New Instant Game. This $20 ticket, designed and printed by Pollard Banknote Limited, not only offers cash prizes of up to $1 million but also includes a chance to win a trip to the edge of space through the Space Perspective Cash Adventure second-chance promotion.

The Texas Lottery's Holiday Scratch campaign, under the theme “Don’t Make the Holidays Awkward,” was recognized in two categories: one for the use of humor in digital and social media, and another for its multicultural and community engagement efforts. The campaign demonstrated the Texas Lottery’s commitment to engaging a broad audience through humor and inclusivity.

Other nominations included the HIT family of scratch ticket games. The “Pillow Fight” commercial was a finalist in the category for TV Advertisement Under $25,000, while the “Now That’s What I Call HITS” audio track earned a spot as a finalist for Original Music. The HIT Mobile Game was also acknowledged in the Digital Media Advertising category.

Additionally, the Texas Lottery's promotional efforts with the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans, titled “Make Every Day Game Day,” were recognized as finalists for their coordinated print campaigns. The agency's work on its 2022 Annual Report and its 2023-24 Comprehensive Business Plan also received finalist recognition in the Corporate Communications category.