In his opening address, WLA President, Andreas Kötter, highlighted the importance of the WLA and CIBELAE partnership, and such events which gather industry experts, lotteries, suppliers and various authorities; offer members a global communication platform for sharing views and best practices, as well as provide updates on latest trends, regulation and technologies that affect our industry.

How WLA supports members

During the session on Fighting illegal gambling from a responsible gaming perspective, Kötter highlighted the important and varied work undertaken by WLA to support members around the world, including:

• Certification to WLA Responsible Gaming Framework and to the WLA Security Control Standard enables members to demonstrate that they follow industry best practices and provide their customers with safe, responsible player environments.
• WLA has begun an innovative joint project with the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, that will use artificial intelligence to develop a standardized, scalable and reliable method to estimate the illegal gambling market. The aim is to enhance the ability of regulatory authorities and law enforcement agencies to combat this phenomenon and protect the integrity of the legal gaming system.
• Kötter highlighted the important work of the Combatting Illegal Lotteries and Betting Committee, which develops useful tools to assist members, including access to the database called the Overview of illegal lottery and betting operations. This provides factsheets on betting on lotteries, and courier services around the world.
• The Committee has developed a brochure entitled: Combatting illegal betting to protect the integrity of sports, which informs about illegal betting operators and the link to the corruption in sports. It has also published the Best Practice Guide for Protecting IP of multijurisdictional games and WLA Working Definitions, which offers definitions of what WLA considers to be legal and illegal operations.
• Kötter also discussed the growing number of bulk purchases of lottery tickets by Lottery Courier Service Operators in different jurisdictions, which he described as a model that undermines the integrity of lotteries and creates a parallel system to regular player participation. He explained the role of lottery courier service operators, elaborated on the Texas case and the regulatory response to it, and concluded that WLA is currently preparing guidance to support members and promote best practices.

Responsible gaming certification and project RED

WLA CSR Coordinator, Melissa Azam, gave an overview of WLA Responsible Gaming certification using the DigitalRG Platform, which simplifies and allows the entire process of certification to all levels to happen in one place.

Azam highlighted positive growth in membership certification to Levels 2, 3 and 4, from 65% in 2022 to 84% in 2025, since WLA increased support to members and made the DigitalRG Platform available.

WLA Legal Counselor, Lynne Roiter, presented Project RED – Responsible, Ethical and Dynamic – an initiative of the WLA strategic plan to create resources and tools to support and promote WLA member CSR efforts, and assist them in sharing this information.

The Project’s objectives are to enable WLA members to learn from others to improve their own practices, connect with peers to exchange directly, and understand trends, as well as to see benchmarking data to help make a case for improvement.

Roiter commented that so far, of the 50 lotteries from 35 countries participating in project RED, 12 were CIBELAE members from seven countries, but there was room for growth.

Key topics discussed

Some of the topics covered for the future of regulated lotteries and sports betting operators, included:

• The application of artificial intelligence in digital games for player protection - with a presentation from Leemon of Singapore Pools, on AI tools used to detect illegal websites.
• Best practices in player education - with case studies of best practices from Kate Carlson of the Indiana Lottery, US, and from the Loteria Concepción, Chile.
• Prevalence studies in Latin America - with case studies from Kleber Paz, President, Caixa Loterías, Brazil, and Sandra Conde, General Manager, Banca de Quinielas de Montevideo.
• Experience of WLA RG Certification - with a presentation from Mr Xu Ming of the China Sports Lottery.

Additionally, a round table was held for the Women's Initiative in Lottery Leadership (WILL), a program begun in 2016, which aims to support women in achieving their leadership potential and ensure that lottery management reflects the diverse perspectives required for industry growth. Over the past decade, it has developed a global network, offering mentorship, networking, and resources for women worldwide, in the lottery sector.

Moderated by Sandra Sandoval of CIBELAE, panelists Lynne Roiter, WLA Legal Counselor, Esmeralda Britton Gonzalez, President of JSP, Costa Rica, Diane Fusco, Manager of Social Responsibility and Responsible Gaming, IJAN/ALEA, Claudia Mendoza, Senior Director, Latin America and The Caribbean, Brightstar, and Karen Sierra, VP, Latin America, The Caribbean and Spain, GLI, discussed WILL progress in the Latin American region.