Ever heard of IGT, aka International Game Technology? We didn’t either until participating in the Lakeland Economic Development Council’s Summer Leadership Program, where we toured their Lakeland location (4000 S. Frontage Rd.).

Here’s what you need to know:

IGT is the global leader in gaming, working with legal, regulated public, and commercial gaming operators, delivering gaming, lottery, sports betting, and PlayDigital products and services.
They provide Instant Game Development services to 60+ lotteries worldwide, manage the world’s largest instant lottery, and support seven of the top 10 lotteries.
53% of U.S. instant ticket sales are ordered through IGT’s predictive ordering system, supporting 116,000+ retailers.
70% of U.S. retailers are served by an IGT instant ticket inventory management system.

They have 12,000+ employees in ~100 countries with 300+ locations throughout North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. And one of their major locations is in Lakeland, FL (with ~300 employees), printing thousands of games for customers in 50+ countries.

IGT invested $45+ million in its Lakeland printing facility (which opened in 2009) with the newest + largest presses in the instant ticket printing industry. Their Gallus press can print 48,000 tickets per minute and over 11 billion tickets annually. Each ticket goes through 22 layers of print + bulletproof security, with every station adding a new feature to the instant ticket, such as a different color, security measure or scratch-off component, so you can potentially win big + smell good. Chocolate lottery ticket, anyone?

Computers and sensors monitor every ticket to ensure that only the designated number of winning tickets are shipped to the customer. If the system reports that a single batch of tickets isn’t accounted for, the production line shuts down until the missing tickets are found. The tickets are then shipped to their clients.

So to sum it up, here’s a win/win for you: The next time you buy an instant lottery game ticket, you’re essentially helping boost their demand, hence contributing to the employment growth in Lakeland.