Image you find a lottery ticket in your trouser pocket that has to be redeemed at the last minute. But now you have to find the nearest lottery retailer outlet because for a long time, tickets filled out by hand could only be redeemed at lottery retailer outlets with large lottery terminals.
Artificial intelligence in the lottery
Westdeutsche Lotterie GmbH & Co. OHG
Project
Challenge
WestLotto, faced with this challenge, looked for a solution that would enable players to hand in their tickets at smaller lottery retailer outlets, such as news agents, beverage shops and bakeries. Equipped with handy tablet computers, these lottery retailer outlets could previously only accept tickets for games that come with a ticket receipt or quick pick receipt or tickets for games with picks that are digitally preselected. In the previously imagined scenario, the lucky ticket you found in your trouser pocket would not have been accepted.
These limitations had to be overcome and seamless ticket submission on site had to be made possible. adesso, as a long-standing partner of WestLotto, developed the appropriate application for this.
The AI application recognises the numbers even on a crumpled ticket
"Recognising tickets on a tablet is a challenging task. Unlike conventional lottery terminals, with tablets, there is no feed-in scanner that takes in the ticket, possibly smooths it out and properly reads it. On a tablet, a photo of the filled-out lottery ticket has to be interpreted. The adesso solution here relies on Google Cloud and AI technologies in combination with machine learning methods. This means that AI algorithms make it possible to properly read the numbers that have been ticked."
Andreas Luckmann, Sales Director in adesso’s Lottery business unit
Solution
An AI that reads lottery tickets — Our experts worked closely with WestLotto to develop a customised solution. The software that was designed uses artificial intelligence to automatically recognise and evaluate the customers’ ticks. What is more, the traditional image processing and rule-based algorithms were also combined with machine learning methods. By utilising transfer learning in combination with models from Google Cloud AutoML for object detection, high-quality results could already be achieved with a small amount of training data.
Result
The innovative lottery app has given WestLotto a clear competitive advantage. By introducing the software, the company was able to expand its range of offerings and provide its customers an improved lottery experience. The integration of cloud-based technology allows players to have their lottery tickets scanned securely and conveniently via the tablet app. Even that lottery ticket you forgot about can be redeemed here.
"After successfully designing and implementing our gaming portal, which adesso realised for our customers, we worked in close cooperation with them to put the ticket recognition software on Android tablets. By doing so, we are creating a complete alternative to the conventional terminal, as tickets can now also be recorded and processed on tablets via camera."
Michael Stücker is Head of IT Development at WestLotto and has been working with adesso for years
Westdeutsche Lotterie GmbH & Co. OHG (WestLotto), based in Münster, Westphalia, is North Rhine-Westphalia’s state lottery company. WestLotto runs games of chance on behalf of the state as a subsidiary of NRW.Bank and Nordwestlotto in Nordrhein-Westfalen GmbH. It’s also a member of the Deutscher Lotto- and Totoblock at national level and of the European Lotteries Association (EL) and the World Lottery Association (WLA) at international level.
Do you have any questions?
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Teamlead Sales Lottery Martin Meedt martin.meedt@adesso.de