Wheel of Oz

Winning is proven to be a key activity that long-term leads to increased ATV, purchasing frequency, and retention. It's been found that customers who don't win within the first 60 days have a much higher chance of not returning to Oz Lotteries than those who do win. This raises the question of how can we provide a sense of accomplishment and fun to those who aren't lucky enough to receive a win.

The core motivators for players to transact and play on Oz Lotteries are all extrinsic (scarcity, avoidance, unpredictability). However, these core drivers have a finite life span if they can't be backed by intrinsic motivators. Intrinsic motivators, heavily driven by accomplishment, meaning, and empowerment, are the key to sustaining customer interest, which often comes from winning.

However, what we can potentially do (in theory) is replicate a similar feeling using games. This experiment loops customers back into our Oz Lotteries ecosystem, providing them with an entertaining experience that provides joy and a winning feeling. Customers have the opportunity to socially share their score on a leaderboard to open the door to viral loops.

We conducted qualitative and quantitative research to better understand customer sentiment. We spoke to two cohorts: customers who had purchased within the past 60 days, won, and been active in the past 14 days and customers who had purchased within the past 60 days, hadn’t won, and had been active in the past 14 days.

Wheel of Oz was our first increment towards Daily Winners. We initially undertook qualitative and quantitative research to understand customer sentiment better. We spoke to two cohorts:

Daily Winners fake door experiment

Customers who have had a win

• Purchased >=1 within 60 days of first use
• Won >=1 within 60 days of first use
• Been active in the past 14 days

Customers who haven’t had a win

• Purchased >=1 within 60 days of first use
• Haven’t won >=1 within 60 days of first use
• Been active in the past 14 days

We gained some nice insights from this research piece, but one that stood out was that most customers played because they thought they would win (why play otherwise). When they came back to check their results, they were almost always disappointed. Which unfortunately brings the desired habit loop to an abrupt halt. So we then asked how we can add value for customers no matter the outcome.

To dive deeper into this space, I looked further into motivating factors. I found two distinctly different types of motivation: extrinsic and intrinsic.

Leveraging the above motivation types, we looked at ways to introduce some form of gamification to pull customers back to the platform. As this was an experiment to gauge customer interest and would only be seen by a few customers, the business was happy to investigate.

We landed on creating a game called ‘Wheel of Oz’, a fun play on ‘Wizard of Oz’ and ‘Oz Lotteries’. Internally, we workshopped game logic. We landed on a variation of a game we found online, that let you bet if a number was ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ based on a dice roll. I created a user flow to make it clear to the team how the game would work. I also developed early design documentation to outline my ideal animation styles and brand aesthetic.

Wheel of Oz was a game based on odds. The game's goal is to accrue as many points as possible within two rounds. Players spun a wheel and landed on a random number. The player then decided whether the following spin's number would be Higher or Lower.

If correct, they could either "Bank" the number OR continue to spin to add more to their score. There are three ways a round could end…

We introduced Wheel of Oz to a small cohort of engaged customers on Oz Lotteries. Measuring the following;