Malta was the chosen country to host the European Lotteries 2015 Retailing Seminar held earlier this month on the 3rd and 4th of May, at the Intercontinental, St. Julian's, hosted by Maltco Lotteries.
The focus and content of this year's Retailing Seminar, was "back to basics"; Back to where 93% of the lottery business happens.
With prominent speakers from the general retail sector, Lotteries, retail analysts, lottery suppliers including; Maltco's Chief Executive Officer Dr. Ioannis Katakis and a panel of 3 Maltese Lotto Agents, the 2015 Retailing Seminar challenged conventional approaches to lottery retail and provided participants with a fresh perspective on where most of their lottery sales arise.
Sixty highly ranked participants from top lottery companies in all over the world, including Austria, France, UK, Georgia, Germany, Latvia, Ukraine, Switzerland, Morocco and Canada attended for the 2 day seminar which incorporated that all participants visited 4 of Maltco's retail outlets in order to witness how such a small island has created a unique approach to the lottery industry and developed the successful retail network.
During his presentation Maltco's CEO spoke about the challenges that came with the privatisation of the (then) Public Lotto and about the ever growing success, and about the Agents' change in mentality; who from Lotto Receivers had to transform into Lotto Agents. Coming from Intralot - one of the most acclaimed retail networks worldwide - Dr. Katakis spoke about how he applied his invested experience to make Maltco Lotteries what it is today.
From a different perspective Mr. Victor Cassar, Mr. Alfred Gerada and Mr. Conrad Degiorgio, owners of 3 different Maltco outlets shared their views, experiences and how they overcome all their business challenges since the public lotto became Maltco Lotteries. Mr. Cassar said that when Maltco invested millions of euro he decided to upgrade and increase his opening hours, and today he owns 3 outlets. Mr. Gerada stated that "thanks to Maltco's investment efficiency has increased and the waiting time for the players has decreased". From his part Mr. Degiorgio, said he feels very proud to see that our Points Of Sale are amongst the Highest rated in Europe.
This seems to be projected not only by the Maltese participants, as even the Vice-President of Santa Casa Da Misericordia De Lisboa (SCML) Mr. Fernando Paes Afonso who was amongst the participants said that he was impressed by the progressive way Maltco Lotteries managed to change the concept of the retail outlets and yet abided perfectly within the conformity required by the European Lotteries standards. Mr. Paes Afonso said that other lottery organisations in Europe and in the world should follow Maltco and seek to adapt the same model in order to experience the same success of the Maltese story.