Retail Innovation for Lottery Could Reap Billions for Merchants

By Robert Green Atlanta Trend

• Oct 31, 2025

Success runs in the Florida based Demetree family, as Chris Demetree knows firsthand. He is trying to carry on the family legacy with an innovative company in Atlanta that could easily turn both the retail and lottery business in the United States on its head. As CEO of Lazlo 326, Demetree may well be breaking the decades-old two vendor lock on the US lottery business with a cloud-native, omnichannel solution that allows lottery tickets to be sold from any point-of-sale device. “This is going to generate more revenue for retailers, the lotteries and for advertisers while lowering cost by eliminating lottery hardware,” says Demetree.

Born and raised in Florida, Demetree was well schooled in the work-hard and prosper philosophy of his father and uncle. They had taken a post-World War II home-building business and turned it into a conglomerate that included banking, insurance, cable television, cellular phones and specialty chemicals. “My father’s philosophy was simple,” according to Chris, “he said to always have one line of business income to pay for all your expenses then use all other lines of income to invest in appreciable assets.” 

Doing very well with this disciplined approach for many years, the family’s big break came in the mid 1960’s when Walt Disney purchased undeveloped land from them for the construction of Disney World in Orlando. Continuing their success as developers and builders, the Demetree name became synonymous with quality construction in the real estate business. 

After graduating from Georgia Tech in 1986, Chris joined the family business, which continued to be as successful as ever. In 1989, a side investment he made opened his eyes to the possibilities of the technology business. “I was on the board of Crown Laboratories when it went public on the American Exchange,” says Chris, “and it made me realize that there were options besides real estate.”

Chris continued in real estate and kept his hand in technology investing at the same time for two decades, Then, in 2014, the Chief Technology Officer of a company he’d formerly invested in came to Chris with a provisional patent, which was essentially the initial framework for what became the software allowing the sale of lottery tickets from any point-of-sale device. He was looking for advice.

“Lotteries are a paper-based business,” says Chris. “State lottery officials have wanted to move to digital for a while, but the only solution available given hardware infrastructure constraints were internet gaming or iLottery. . This was an attempt to try.”

Within a year, Chris had invested in the company and become its CEO. “We went to the heads of some of the state lotteries. They liked what we were doing and said that we needed to speak with their lottery vendors, IGT and Scientific Games,” he said. “While the lotteries  were enthusiastic, we couldn’t move forward because neither company could do digital. Honestly, they weren’t very motivated to make any changes.”

Getting nowhere with the vendors, the leaders at the Georgia Lottery suggested that Chris and his team talk to Walmart. When they met with the company, they were surprised to find that Walmart had a vision called Omni Lottery – which would make lottery available to its customers at all touchpoints. “For the first time, they wanted lottery to live within their ecosystem like all other products they sell,” says Chris. “We told them that with their help, we could build and launch the next generation lottery platform, we would pilot with them in a state of their choosing, and the platform needed to be available to all retailers.”

Having to go through Walmart’s vendor process, Lazlo326 responded to an RFI (Request For Information) at the end of 2019. They were all set to be approved by Walmart’s vendor management board at a meeting in the middle of March 2020 and begin work. “We got pulled from the board’s agenda because of Covid,” says Chris, “and ended up waiting for two years.”

The process restarted in the first quarter of 2022 and Lazlo built a system that met all of Walmart’s requirements. “Our system required no special hardware, could integrate into their point-of-sale system and could launch seamlessly across all states,” said Chris. “Instead of the 45+ centralized gaming systems now offered by the two major vendors, we offer a decentralized gaming system, built in the cloud. It’s the first of its kind offered at retailin the US.”

Currently, every state lottery operates as its own system, with its own rules, vendors, and decades-old technology. That means custom-built software, hardware, and processes that don’t talk to each other.

This “one-off” approach has major downsides:

• For lotteries: Innovation is slow, expensive, and often locked behind long vendor contracts. Even simple upgrades—like offering digital payouts or adding new games—can take years.

• For retailers: Most stores need special terminals just to sell lottery tickets. That means more equipment, training, downtime, and most important, the potential for financial losses.

• For consumers: Players still must print tickets, visit prize offices, and wait for paper checks—while everything else in their life happens digitally.

“Lazlo 326 is changing all of this,” says Chris. “It’s everything today’s lottery experience should be—but hasn’t been, until now.”

The company believes that once Lazlo starts rolling that adoption will occur quickly. “The revenue opportunities for retailers and the state lotteries are tremendous,” says Chris. “For one thing, 20 billion lottery tickets are now printed each year. With our system, that’s 20 billion advertising opportunities – revenue that we can make – Lazlo owns the impression - and share with both the retailers and the states.”

In the current lottery system, retailers make little to no money from the lottery. “They do it for door swings,” says Chris, “just to get customers to walk into the store.”

Running their pilot project with Walmart in Louisiana now, the company already has additional state lotteries interested in moving forward as well. “Other large retailers have also expressed interest,” says Chris. “The merchants could make so much out of this,” he says. “We predict that many of them may start using lottery tickets as currency for their customer loyalty programs. One reason it’s good for that – we have research on this – is that a one-dollar lottery ticket is perceived as so much more valuable that a one-dollar discount,” says Chris. “It’s because of the possibility that it could be worth so much more. Also, in our system, the tickets are easily available all over the store and easily distributed.”

Chris meanwhile has continued with his many roles in the real estate business. He is one of the co-founders of Demetree Brothers, Inc. and currently serves as Vice President. Mr. Demetree has served as the Managing Partner for Alico Estates Development Associates, and as Vice President of Demetree Pasco Properties, Inc. His past developments include over 2,000 single family lots, a golf course country club community, and numerous commercial office/retail centers. Mr. Demetree has served on the Board of Directors of several private and public companies, the Advisory Board for Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Management, and he served most recently on the Board of Wurl, Inc. 

In addition to Demetree Brothers, Chris’s career has encompassed both operating and investment management responsibilities across multiple industries. Currently, he is a partner in V-P Ventures, a private investment firm focused on early-stage companies. As CEO of Lazlo 326, Chris also envisions other valuable applications of the company’s technology to mobile/digital content delivery.