From 16 to 18 September, Sisal S.p.A. brought regulators, researchers, and lottery professionals together in Milan for the EL/WLA Responsible Gaming & Sustainability Seminar 2026, an event built around a single question: where is this industry actually heading?
The programme set a high bar, with the European Lotteries and the World Lottery Association bringing the room together. For Evoplay, as we supply both lottery operators and casino brands, the event offered a rare close-up view of an industry that has quietly solved a problem the wider gambling world still struggles with: running games of chance without being seen as a threat.
The difference isn’t the product. Lotteries and betting operators both take a wager and pay a prize. What separates them is purpose. A lottery exists to fund hospitals, sport and heritage projects, so a struggling player isn’t just a compliance headache; they undermine the entire licence. That single distinction shapes everything else, from who runs player protection internally to how governments treat lottery advertising.
Our team was represented by Frank Cecchini, Head of Lottery, who spent the sessions listening, investigating and comparing notes with peers from across the sector. Frank noted:
Every conversation in that room started from the same question: what happens to the person on the other end of this game? Operators ask us for volume. Lotteries ask us where the natural pause sits, whether the mechanic is transparent, and whether the feature would survive a dark-patterns review. Building to that standard first, then bringing it to the wider market, isn’t a compromise. It’s the only strategy that survives the next ten years of regulation.
Milan wasn’t an ethics lecture. It showed that restraint, done properly, is a commercial asset, not a cost. And Evoplay intends to stay part of that conversation!
