Albania’s National Lottery, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Austrian Lotteries, is to go live with its first lottery product this month following the Albanian parliament’s ratification of its license.
Austrian Lotteries was selected as the operator of the Albanian national lottery in September 2012 following a public tender process, beating a rival bid from a consortium led by Italy’s Lottomatica.
Since parliament’s ratification of the license in late March, Austrian Lotteries has been rolling out hundreds of terminals at lottery sales outlets across the country, which are connected to a central data centre in the Albanian capital Tirana.
“After confirmation of the license, the license ratification from the Albanian Parliament and the presidential decree, we are now engaging in the professional establishment of Lotaria Kombëtare (National Lottery) and the overall implementation of the latest technical systems,” said Lotaria Kombetare chief executive Peter Simoner. “The main goal is to develop the games of Lotaria Kombëtare in the most transparent and secure manner for the public that is also monitored and supervised by the Ministry of Finance.”
The national lottery plans to launch its first game, based on the popular lottery game Lotto 6 aus 39, before the end of April, with two scratch card games scheduled for launch in the second half of 2013.
“It is a great and wonderful challenge to establish a lottery in the dynamic Republic of Albania,” added Austrian Lotteries director Bettina Glatz-Kremsner. “We will convince the Albanian population of the reliability, security and quality of our lottery games and support important projects for the country.”