foreign Hemphill who is the sports betting product manager at the Oregon Lottery how are you Carrie hello I'm doing well today thank you for having me thanks for being here uh the first question which we can jump right into is just about what a typical day looks like for you at the Oregon Lottery and more about your role sure let me first tell you a little bit about the Oregon lottery so um and why we exist so we are a state-run lottery here in Oregon for the purpose that we exist for the purpose of our mission statement which is to operate a lottery with the highest Integrity standards and security standards um to in order to gain maximum profits for the state of Oregon while commiserating with the public good so my role with that is to run the sports betting program I've been at the Oregon lottery for about 14 and a half 15 years I've had a handful of different positions at the lottery for marketing to merchandising and the last handful was as a sports betting product so we we brought it back in 2019 and I've been running that since then um unlike other areas in the states um Oregon is unique in that the gambling is still considered illegal unless it's run through the state agency so or the tribal casinos here and with that we we're not the experts in the sports betting field so we wanted to enter back into sports betting but we had to find a platform that would help us do that so we we are working with DraftKings as our partner and that's where I come in I have a few more questions about that for you later perfect I oversee the relationship with our partner with DraftKings and on a typical day it is um product check-ins whether it's internal stakeholders or our DraftKings account management team we do internal checks and balances you know our due diligence set the lottery to make sure everything is running smoothly and as it should and just maintaining uh communication with various League sport contacts and people around the industry so that kind of encompasses most of my day is networking and communicating with a lot of different partners within the projects okay and since sports betting is sort of a a newer product of the lottery uh post pasta post 2019. we also wanted to check in about what the more traditional products have been and what's been offered at the Oregon Lottery since the beginning yeah we have all traditional products so we the lottery started in 1985. we actually did have a sports betting sports betting product way back then um it was called Sports Action it was very traditional it was you know in the newspaper the odds would go in there and then you'd walk into the convenience store pick your picks very like a quick pick and uh and then you know wait for that to happen and that closed down um a number of years ago so when we brought sports betting back in 2019 it actually isn't the first time we've had it but with our traditional products so we offer everything from that you would normally find within the state so scratch it tickets our daily draw games like you know and then our big jackpot style games which are like the Powerball and mega Millions which are multi-state jackpot games and we in Oregon are unique though in that we offer what we call video lottery so it is that Vegas style slot machine type game we are one of only a handful of states in the U.S lotteries in the U.S I think about eight that offer the video style game and in addition to the rest of our Lottery products great and a lot of states use these games to fund Community projects like public schools or state parks and we were curious if you could tell us more about the breakdown of where the funding goes yeah certainly so in the state of Oregon we are unique in that we operate on a two-year budget cycle um so that's not typical to Most states and for the this past year the 2021 to 2023 budget cycle we allocated 1.8 million a billion dollars excuse me to our state beneficiaries and um these beneficiaries are supported by oregonians they're voted on by oregonians that way we make can make sure that the money goes back into the community areas that they're passionate about so for us that is education Economic Development parks and Watershed problem gambling resources and veteran services uh we are unique though on the sports product in that it is allocated separately from those beneficiaries so the sports product all of the profits that come from Sports goes to the to offset costs of the the state public pensions and um that for for those employees like you that go to universities or school districts on state agencies and so all pension costs are allocated um from sports betting Revenue okay I'm coming back to sports betting then can you tell us more about your partnership with DraftKings and what that's been like and what you can offer now because of it yeah so as I said we're a little unique in that we we uh sports betting has to come through the Oregon lottery for it to be illegal in the states um here and we started in 2019 um we look we found a platform provider that helped kick everything off um a couple years later DraftKings acquired that platform provider and so starting in January of 2022 so just a little over a year and change ago we transitioned our entire sports betting product over to the DraftKings Sportsbook and um and we've been you know running ever since with that um it is a way for us to offer a safe and reliable sports betting product for oregonians um in order to play you have to be in the boundaries of the state of Oregon and not on tribal lands so you can place a wager anywhere in the state um and we have an extensive library of sports you know offerings that that and different ways to wager and all standard sporting stuff um we we include single event parlay bets live wagering we do not offer Collegiate wagering currently but we do offer a wide variety of pretty much everything else and it also comes with a full Suite of responsible gambling services so the sports product for Oregon Lottery is the first and only product that we know who our players are with known play it's a digital product here it's not in brick and mortar locations unlike the rest of our our um our products so you have to sign up for it and in order to sign up for it you first responsible gambling you get to pick you know your self-imposed limits uh daily limits wager limits uh cool off periods those kind of thing we also know who our customers are it's our only product that we actually do know who we are and are able to give tools to them because of that and the accounts go through DraftKings as well or all through Oregon Lottery it's kind of it's It's both it's a shared approach with our partnership with them but they run the platform for us so um it's handled by by DraftKings but Oregon Lottery is still the operator in our agreement with them so they are our platform provider and they do a lot of tasks on our behalf but our true partnership then working together yes Oregon Lottery maintains the operator and the regulatory status of the relationship with DraftKings okay and you said it's available everywhere except tribal land so Oregon we have a number of tribal casinos throughout the state and our partnership with them or agreement with them is they they are able to offer sports betting also within the boundaries of their tribal areas so for example we have where I live I'm about an hour from the coast our beach areas and I drive past a tribal casino on the way so I can bet on Oregon Lottery on my app going that direction but when I get to near that casino I would have to be in the casino to wager on their area their sports book uh whatever that is and then once I get past that I can go back to Oregon lottery so we wanted to be uh mindful of our tribal relationships and let them still offer sports betting as well and that way um we can kind of split split it when folks go to the casinos to play the casino they can play their sports book and then when they're around the state around our areas they can play ours friends okay that makes sense and going back a bit speaking of playing your sports book and how many options you have I know you've offered some really interesting wagering on events like the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest which just happened um 62 hot dogs in 10 minutes that's insane um are there any other uh really interesting and unique events that you're offering wagering on coming up yeah so I guess it would be considered what you would consider unique so for us you know in the states we just got past uh our independence day so lots of backyard barbecues and outdoor stuff and as you mentioned the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest happens every year on the 4th of July our independence day and uh so everybody here knows our standard three sports or our main sports in the US or basketball football and baseball and when right now we're in the summer months the Ebbs and flow of the sports season and so football for us and basketball aren't happening and we want to make sure we keep a library of sports active so we're always looking for those unique kind of different sporting events going on um another one that we offer that kind of goes with the Nathan's and the hot dog is is cornhole so there is a you know a league and a championship and one of my roles with the Oregon Lottery is to review the sports that are offered on the platform for whether it's a good fit for for lottery so because DraftKings may have it in other jurisdictions um other states here doesn't mean it's guaranteed to to be active in Oregon so we review everything that comes through whether it fits for us and some of the things that we do when we review is we ask ourselves does it have a governing body you know are there integrity standards with it what are the age of the participants are there Integrity standards with cornhole there there's a governing body so I guess there is that's great to know yeah so we offer things and so yes some of those more non-standard events um they they have uh governing bodies that go with them we've got uh well Tour de France recycling uh Motorsports um there's even so baseball maybe a standard event but coming up here is the Home Run Derby so the guys can go in and sit so all of those kind of things to kind of fill the the sports season when you get kind of the Ebbs and flows and the the more lull of it we've got a lot of things that kind of fill the pot so something for everybody Sports can be um a little a lot if you're not used to sports betting and so when you can go in there and look at the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest and just pick the over and under of how many hot dogs is he gonna eat 62 hot dogs are under that or over that it's a little simpler for those um you know more casual Bettors that want to come in and just kind of check it out so we want to make sure that we have something for everybody something that's a little bit more robust if they want to go that route or something very simple um you know football for Super Bowl was pick the color of the Gatorade that gets dumped on the coach at the end of the game something very simple like that that's just an easy pick and so we're kind of all over the board very cool um and what are your relationships like with the Retail Partners do you find people are still buying lottery tickets and playing lottery games in shops and in stores in person or are they mostly playing online so the sports book is our only online digital product that we currently offer for Oregon lottery so it's a hundred percent digital and it's it's available through the draftking Sportsbook app and website it's kind of our first jump into that digital realm all of our other lottery products are standard Lottery products whether that be scratchets um Keno or even the video that we have must be done on site in a brick and mortar retail location we have thousands of Retail Partners throughout the state of Oregon that that our customers go in they can either go in buy a ticket you know take that ticket home or they can go in and actually play on site uh so our video lottery in the terminals they play on site we have Keno up on the screens they can sit there if they choose to and watch it uh so we're very involved with our retail Channel and our partners there throughout the state and so we give a little bit for everybody in in Oregon if they want to go in in person or um you know with sports play online okay and our last question for you was just what the goals are for the Oregon lottery for the rest of the year and if you're on track to meet them yeah so it's been wonderful it's been uh it's been a great experience moving over to the DraftKings platform um one area that I see with this is just what kind of growth we can have in the future um we originally forecasted you know four or five years of growth for the product until we start kind of plateauing and that was before we switched platforms so I'm just excited to see what the future has to offer and kind of see where we are within that trending um it's all very new this year will be the second year we're on DraftKings for the kickoff of football the kickoff of the National Football League coming up here in a couple months and I just want to see where we are one of the the big uh growth periods we've had is within our registrations of the product so we are seeing a lot of new players coming in we've seen a lot more players coming betting a little our average bet amount has gone on down while our number of players have gone up pictures to me tells yeah it tells me that we're getting a lot more recreational players which is what we want to see um for the sports product it's a different player base than our Lottery product and we that's one of the reasons the goals we brought it in was to expand our player base to something new and so when we're seeing a lot more recreational Bettors coming in and just kind of checking us out it is definitely a goal of mine to continue to grow that as best we can and to continue to offer products to them that want to keep them coming back and checking us out new new unique you know events or markets or different ways to wager as sports betting becomes more mainstream here in the U.S it's becoming more standard that that people are used to seeing it and I believe that will help us bring registration numbers in and I want to make sure that with that growth of of players coming in and where they're dabbling in the product that it's a good like for them that they enjoy it and they want to come back and check us out for more well thank you so much for telling us about everything you're working on and I hope the rest of your year goes well thank you very much for having me foreign