Singapore Pools was established as a government-owned lottery and sports betting operator in 1968 with the mission of offering safe, trusted gambling to combat illegal gambling. Their founders recognized that banning gambling would only push it underground to be profited by criminal triads or bookies, leading to more crime and violence within society. Furthermore, responsible gaming provides easier gambling opportunities while supporting charities or community initiatives through this platform.
Singapore Pools’ early focus on customer experience, digital transformation and innovation tools has enabled it to build a strong foundation and remain competitive in the global lottery industry. Over its 2019/20 financial year, Singapore Pools collected close to S$9bn – of which 70% was returned directly back to winners; 22% went into government tax collections while 5% was directed back into Tote Board to be reinvested back into arts, community development, charity works, education sports healthcare initiatives.
Singapore Pools’ expanding customer base required it to find ways of innovating its business, and Yeo and his team focused on turning traditional counter-service and in-person channels into digital platforms accessible online, via mobile phones, or tablets – thus expanding reach and increasing revenue.
However, transitioning to digital channels also increased cyber security risks for the company. Since many older employees were working remotely and were more susceptible to phishing attacks and other forms of cyber threats due to cloud infrastructure shift, this put them in greater peril for phishing attacks or any other threats that may emerge in cloud infrastructure environments. It was challenging for team members to quickly identify problems when issues occurred as well as find effective solutions when issues did occur.
To address these challenges, the company migrated to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Utilizing OCI’s Observability and Management platform, the team gained increased visibility into their IT environment, reduced risk exposure, and ensured all applications were operating at peak performance. With automated alerts available through OCI’s platform, troubleshooting issues within minutes rather than hours became possible while real-time resource optimization reduced outages or disruptions significantly.