Automated Lottery Program for Allocated Spirits

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2018

Certain highly allocated items are very sought after by our citizens, and over the years the amount of people interested has grown (it started with about 30 citizens reaching out via email asking if certain brands/items were available; items were assigned to those who wanted to purchase via email, and transferring the product around to where whichever stores the citizen wanted to purchase them). Even as of 2015, we tried a type of lottery (versus rotating through email requests), where staff would make individual paper tickets, put them in a bucket, and draw 'winners' (this lottery is defined as entering to win an opportunity to purchase a hard to get item, such as Pappy Van Winkle bourbon). Working with our department's Information Technology division, we created an automated lottery system, where emails were tracked, a random number generator would assign the winners, and information and winning numbers were communicated via automated email. To date, there are now over 19,000 citizens signed up to be notified of lotteries, with more added every day. Citizens have spoken up and said they feel the new program is more fair, understandable, and transparent. Recent lotteries have seen 3,000 - 7,000 entries per item.