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The Virginia Lottery has taken a decidedly Scandinavian turn.
This month, the lottery added a trio of eInstant online lottery games from Finland-based Fennica Gaming, a subsidiary of the Finnish National Lottery. Fennica’s games will bring more diversity to Virginia’s online lottery offerings, a fact Virginia Lottery Deputy Executive Director of Marketing Scott Kenyon pointed out in a statement about the partnership.
“As we wrap up four years of having iLottery, it is important for the Virginia Lottery to offer new types of eInstant games to our players to continue growing our player base,” Kenyon said. “The unique games provided by Fennica Gaming offer us the opportunity to attract new players that are looking for casual gameplay and additional value in their experience.”
Fennica’s library will be available to Virginia Lottery customers through content provider EQL Games.
Key takeaways
- The Virginia Lottery has added new eInstant games from Finnish lottery company Fennica Gaming.
- Three of Fennica’s eInstant games will be available to iLottery customers in Virginia.
- Virginia is one of 13 states offering state-run online lottery games. Virginia online casinos are not legal, but online sports betting is.
Three games headline Fennica partnership
Virginia Lottery customers have access to three Fennica eInstant games:
- Miner Jack’s Combo Caverns: A Candy Crush-style mining-themed game in which players have 12 tries to swap symbols on a 6×7 grid to win prizes of up to $300,000. Ticket prices are $1 to $30, and the odds of winning any prize are 1 in 2.91.
- Wobblyblobs: Similar to Miner Jack’s but with blobs on an 8×8 grid instead of mining symbols. Tickets are $1 to $30, the top prize is $300,000, and the chances of winning any prize are 1 in 2.3.
- Boulder Blast: Another matching game, but players use a cannon to fire colorful boulders at descending rows of colorful boulders to make color matches and slow the descent. Ticket prices are $1 to $30, the top prize is $300,000 and the odds of winning any prize are 1 in 2.57.
Adding more games helps Virginia Lottery stay competitive
Fennica has been in the eInstant online lottery business for 20 years; it is no stranger to creating games that capture customers’ attention. Brad Cummings, CEO of EQL Games, said he believes Fennica’s expertise can have an impact on not just the Virginia lottery market, but the national industry.
“When I first saw these games, I knew their casual gaming approach to eInstant products would find an important home in the U.S. iLottery market,” he said. “This marks just the beginning of what Fennica Gaming can offer the Virginia Lottery and the lottery industry as a whole.
“We look forward to seeing how these games will perform now and into the future, and we thank Fennica for trusting us to deliver these groundbreaking products in the Americas.”
Virginia is one of just eight states (and Washington D.C.) to offer draw and instant online games, which essentially serve as a more interactive version of scratch-off games.
While this gives Virginia an advantage over most lottery markets in the country, it merely levels the playing field in its region. Its neighbor to the north, Washington D.C., and its neighbor to the south, North Carolina, offer online draw and instant games.
