Michelle Carney, vice president of strategic customer initiatives and customer advocate at International Game Technology PLC, has a reputation for hard work and frank counsel, qualities that were instrumental in expanding the Powerball and Mega Millions lotteries.
Carney in 2000 started working as a senior marketing analyst with the company, known as GTECH then before its 2015 merger with IGT. She’d already spent six years in client service and administrative support roles, starting her career at what was then the Comcast-Spectacor Wachovia Center, working for the Philadelphia Flyers.
At GTECH, she would research methods for improving lotteries and games, then hand the information off to someone who would present the report to the customer.
“A lot of my work was pretty monotonous,” Carney said. She was more interested in presenting the guidance to the people who would be putting it to use.
Carney soon switched to a customer-facing analyst role, earning five promotions during the last 17 years. Much of that work, including the personal interaction she’d been craving, helped her develop the rapport she needed to make compelling cases for changes that have helped the industry advance.
She helped develop the Jackpot Vision Plan, a collaborative effort among the management of the two large jackpot games in the United States and their vendor partners. They decided on cross-selling and a price increase, and Carney took the plan to the state lottery directors.
“We all realized the need for change,” said Gerald Aubin, director of the lottery division of the R.I. Department of Revenue, who has worked closely with Carney during her time at IGT.
“Michelle has repeatedly demonstrated her industry leadership and value by helping to build consensus on what can sometimes be controversial product and governance decisions,” Aubin said.
Powerball states included the smaller lotteries in Rhode Island, Oregon, West Virginia and Idaho, while Mega Millions areas included more populous states, such as Massachusetts, Georgia, New York and Illinois.
“They saw themselves as competitors,” Carney said. She explained that cooperating to offer customers more choices with each other’s lotteries would be more lucrative.
Carney’s advice gained traction. Lottery directors voted their support for cross-selling, and sales of Powerball and Mega Millions – both now available in markets where customers had only been able to choose one or the other – increased from $5.8 billion in 2009 to $6.3 billion in 2010.
Next, she needed to convince Powerball lottery directors to double the ticket prices from $1 to $2.
“That was a tough one too,” Carney said.
But she knew increasing the ticket prices was the right move, had the numbers to prove it, and the credibility to put their worries to rest.
On Jan. 15, 2012, the second pillar of the plan, raising the price of Powerball to $2, was implemented across the country, a total of 44 lotteries at the time.
As Carney had predicted, the change boosted revenue. The move resulted in a 27.2 percent increase in national Powerball sales – a collective extra $337 million in profits applied to the budgets of participating states.
Carney was also instrumental in updating the Mega Millions game in 2012, leading an internal team to develop multiple Mega Millions and Megaplier game models, but directors remained undecided.
The situation came to a head during an industry meeting of the directors in Montreal in September 2012.
Carney, eight months pregnant at the time, decided to fly to the meeting to make a presentation armed with sales and revenue analysis, and her doctor’s blessing.
On April 8, the group voted unanimously to change the game’s matrix, resulting in 1 in 15 odds to win any prize. The change was scheduled to launch Oct. 19, 2013.
Mega Millions sales increased from $2.2 billion to $3.2 billion in 2014.
“It helped them make a lot of state budgets that year,” Carney said.
