Lottery company keen on sports betting

Supreme Ventures Limited, the sole operator of lotteries in Jamaica, has announced plans to diversify its revenue streams beyond its current overwhelming dependency on Cash Pot.

The sports betting market is a prime area of expansion, according to Brian George, CEO of Supreme Ventures, and he confirmed at the company's annual general meeting on Monday that this will be pursued, while also targeting young people aged 18 to 34.
    
The company offers 10 lottery games, but Cash Pot earns more than 78 per cent of  the revenues.

But George, while acknowledging that "the players ultimately make their choices," vowed to continue to explore additional areas "in which we can grow the revenues and, hopefully, as time goes on, reduce the percentage reliance that we have on Cash Pot and increase the contribution that other games make to total revenue."

He also stressed the company's belief that the potential of the sector had not yet been fully tapped.

"We do believe it is a 50 billion dollar business, of which we do believe that 10-to-15 billion dollars of that continues to operate underground," he said.

Regarding that "underground" segment, he said that the measures put in place by the regulator - the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Commission - to combat such illegal activities, "has been an important consideration in ensuring that we grow the revenues for the government and we grow the revenues for our shareholders."