Customers waiting in line at the lottery ticket counter may enjoy daydreaming about how they would spend their winnings should they be lucky enough to win the big jackpot. But chances are, if the tickets are being generated over a GTECH network powered by Hughes, they’re not waiting in line long enough to even think about that dream home on the beach or that new sports car.

A global, end-to-end lottery services and gaming solutions company, GTECH Corporation holds the title as the world leader in gaming sales, with a dominant share of the international lottery transaction market. Much of this success is due to the high reliability and transaction speeds of its fi rst-rate lottery systems.

GTECH, which recently was acquired by Italybased Lottomatica, the world’s largest lottery system operator and technology provider, employs a Hughes multi-satellite, IPbased solution that gives it the advantage of a faster, more reliable, and more affordable system over its terrestrial-based competitors.

End-to-End Lottery Network

To date, Hughes has provided GTECH with nearly 70,000 VSAT terminals, over 10 network hubs, and all the necessary operations equipment for GTECH to deliver end-to-end lottery network and operations service—representing the single largest private network of its kind in the world. And because it operates over multiple satellites simultaneously, GTECH can diversify its networks over two or three satellites, providing even higher availability.

Rapid Transactions

Transaction time is extremely important in the lottery business. The more quickly tickets are printed, the more ticket sales per hour, and the shorter the customer lines. Transaction times for GTECHgenerated lottery tickets average three seconds, compared to up to 30 seconds when using a dial-up circuit, which can result in much slower sales and impatient ticket buyers.

Peak Performance

The reliability of the transaction is also critical. When the jackpot starts to get to the multi-million dollar level, many more players join the game. GTECH calls this “lottery mania”—the peak performance times when the company is taxing its systems the most.

“In our business, time is money—and availability and reliability are paramount,” said Leonard Guglielmi, director of technology for GTECH’s network engineering group. “When we began our relationship with Hughes in 2002, we were looking for a new way of doing things. Hughes products have truly changed the way we do business because they have helped to make us more competitive. With its superior technologies, Hughes is supporting our “Online…On Time” strategy to operate the best, most available network for our customers.”

“In our core business of transaction processing, a lot is riding on our network,” added Guglielmi. “We process billions of transactions each year—that’s handling many billions of dollars of our customers’ money. We take that very seriously.”

The GTECH/Hughes Partnership

According to Dilbag Johal, vice president, North America programs for Hughes, “The stringent speed and availability requirements of the lottery industry mean that GTECH must deploy and maintain the highest quality network. That’s what the GTECH/Hughes partnership is all about. The capacity and fl exibility of the Hughes’ multi-satellite solution help GTECH achieve the speed and delivery capabilities it requires to lead the worldwide lottery transaction market.”

The odds of winning the jackpot may be the same, but thanks to GTECH it takes only three seconds or less for those potentially lifealtering tickets to spring into the hands of millions of lottery players.