GTECH Finland is the provider of the Online Lottery system of Veikkaus, the national lottery of Finland. We develop the software, deliver POS hardware and provide related services that support the retailer terminals located at the kiosks, the central system that processes the transactions, gaming support systems and the Internet sales channel (www.veikkaus.fi).
We have been working with Veikkaus since the inception of the Online Lottery in Finland in 1990 as the main gaming system provider. Veikkaus is one of the most advanced lotteries in the world and has pioneered for example Internet lottery sales channel since 1996. GTECH and Veikkaus have gone through multiple platform and software conversions, starting from Concurrent based system in 1990 and latest to IBM/AIX based next generation Enterprise Series gaming system in 2008. During the years GTECH and Veikkaus have also been challenged by Y2K and EURO. Since 1990 GTECH´s local team has grown from 1 to 60 persons.
In addition to being technologically advanced Veikkaus also offers a wider range of games than any other national lottery, from traditional numbers games (like Lotto) to games of skill (Sports Betting) and electronic and cardboard instant tickets. The games of chance is not the only challenge. High transaction volumes and numerous online and offline interfaces to systems around the core gaming environments add another dimension to development, testing and maintenance. Gaming system handles over 1.4 billion euros worth of transactions annually of which about 400 million euros go to charitable causes (Finnish arts, sports, youth work and science).
GTECH Finland is mainly a software services organization that delivers new games and other features to the Veikkaus gaming system and provides software maintenance services. We have a small dedicated unit of professionals and we are backed up by a global resource pool from GTECH Corporation.
Although GTECH Corporation is not a widely known company we are the Microsoft of the lottery industry. GTECH Corporation started the so-called online lottery industry in 1980 when the company was founded in the USA and currently we have approximately 75% share of the lottery industry in the world.