【高端访谈】

奇普·波尔斯顿：卖彩票的不能出卖灵魂

You Don’T Sell Your Soul When You Start Working For The Lottery

If you have been to a conference in recent years, chances are you know Chip Polston. You have certainly heard him. He provides a singular “voice” to the events, making announcements throughout and providing commentary and introduction in all the awards ceremonies. You see, Polston is a volunteer, offering his extensive skills as “talent” to the organization in a way few others can.

But that’s just the smallest tip of the largest iceberg, of course. His “day job” is Vice President of Communications, Government and Public Relations for the Kentucky Lottery Corp., a position he has held since 2003. “We are in the luck business, and we were truly fortunate to have Chip join our staff 11 years ago,” said Arch Gleason, the Lottery’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “He is an integral part of lottery operations, communications, public relations and assorted other duties. Additionally, he has been deeply engaged from the outset with issues related to responsible gaming here in Kentucky and around the world, and as government agencies that is a very important part of our mission. Chip is a real asset to us and to the whole lottery industry.”

Polston’s title is just a hint at the breadth of his role at the lottery. He oversees a small staff of three that handles traditional media, social media, customer service, winner relations and responsible gaming, among other tasks. “Anything that deals with forward-facing public relations and communications runs through our office,” he said. “We run pretty lean so we all end up wearing a lot of different hats.”

Wearing multiple hats is nothing new for Polston, who spent almost 15 years doing extensive freelance work as a writer, producer and talent for a number of major corporate clients (including the Kentucky Lottery), while at the same time holding down a full-time job at the University of Louisville as Broadcast News Services Manager. He traded in one group of hats for another in 2003 when his current position opened up at the Lottery.

While working at the University, Polston received a Master of Education in occupational education and training, which fit in nicely with all the freelance work he was doing in the areas of educational and training videos. He also has a Bachelor of Arts from Western Kentucky University with a double major in broadcasting and political science.

Polston was recently named to the board of the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG), and he is extremely excited and honored at that achievement.

He is a single father of two boys, Zachary (13) and Jackson (11), with whom he spends a lot of time. And when he’s not working or playing with family, he is passionate about two things: LEGOs and running. He built with LEGOs a lot as a child, and several years ago bought a set for his eldest son, and ultimately both boys seemed to really enjoy it. “It was a great way for us to do things together,” said Polston. “We’ve all had a lot of fun with it, and when you are building something really big, it also teaches them to finish things that they start.” He is proud to say that they built the Taj Mahal, the largest LEGO set ever manufactured with 5,922 pieces. As his sons got older, they became less interested, but that didn’t stop Polston, who noted that LEGO has introduced many sets targeted at adults who like building things. To this day he works with LEGOs, finding it very relaxing to follow the instructions to build something grand. “At the end of the day, you can stand back and have tangible proof of something you’ve built.”

Running is a much newer hobby, but he was able to cross one item off his bucket list when he competed in the Derby Festival half-marathon last year. He grew up not far from where that race started, and he always told himself he would run. This past May, he ran in the country’s largest half-marathon in Indianapolis.

How did you first start your relationship with the Kentucky Lottery?

I got into the lottery industry on a dare. In 1993, a group of college friends were in town one weekend for a Van Halen concert, and one of them found a classified ad for TV talent to host the Kentucky Lottery drawings. Most of us had worked in broadcasting at some point in our careers, and we thought it would be fun to try for an audition. So we dared each other to send in resumes, thinking there was no way it would ever work out. Remarkably, I got called in for the first round of interviews. A short time later, I got a letter to come in for a formal audition, and I started thinking how it would be a really cool gig. The letter told me when and where to arrive at the studio and gave me a script. When I got there, I found myself surrounded by eight statuesque, beautiful women who were also auditioning. I felt like the janitor at the Miss America pageant. I thought there is absolutely no way in the world that I’d ever get this, so there was no pressure. I went in and had a lot of fun with it. And lo and behold, I ended up getting the job. About a year later, I found out why they hired me. It turns out I was the only one of the nine finalists to follow the directions in the letter and knock on the specified door the morning of the audition; everyone else went to the main entrance. Now, 21 years later, I’m a Vice President of the company. So it literally was one of those life moments of knocking on the right door that has gotten me to where I am today.

How has the role of a lottery communications officer changed over the years?

The communications office of every lottery has changed dramatically. Certainly the web existed a dozen years ago, but it wasn’t the primary source of news for a lot of people. Social media sites like Facebook hadn’t started yet. When I first got here, communications were much more filtered through the news media. If you had a big announcement or activity, you really courted news media to get coverage. Today, news media coverage is still a very important part of what we do, but most communication with players is now direct through Twitter, Facebook, email and the like. So the method by which we communicate with players and distribute information has changed tremendously. And it’s up to us to keep up with it all.

There is also immediate feedback about what we are doing. If we announce something on Facebook and people don’t like it, within minutes we know there are a lot of unhappy people. Conversely, if it explodes with positive comments, then we know we have a winner. We know where our players stand – there are a lot of passionate people out there and there’s very little middle ground. So good or bad, you get very immediate feedback to different things that are going on.

I think we are still in the very early evolutionary steps of all this, and it will go a lot of different directions that none of us have ever imagined.

How did you get started in the area of responsible gaming and what do you consider the most important initiatives for lotteries?

It goes back to my freelance days at the lottery, when I was on the road at a lot of events where we held drawings and sold tickets. I remember very distinctly a young man who was clearly in distress as he took money from his wallet while his wife looked on in horror. With some people you can just tell by their mannerisms and actions that they aren’t in a good place. And watching that couple with their baby, I just didn’t know what to do. I’ve never forgotten that sight or that feeling I had. So when I got this job, and our play responsibly campaign was under my umbrella, it was something I really embraced.

There are a couple of things that I say about people in this industry. One is that you don’t sell your soul when you start working for the lottery – we all have a natural compassion for the people who buy our games. The other is that nobody gets out of bed in the morning with the intent purpose of causing harm to anyone. But by the nature of what we do, there is a small percentage of our population that are going to struggle with the products that we put on the street. It’s our responsibility to make sure that these people have the best help we can provide – information on where to go for help so they can try to get themselves back on track. It has always been a very significant passion of mine to try to get folks that help, because we want it to be fun. Part of my job is promoting the fun of the lottery, how exciting it is to play and how extremely exciting it is to win. But you know that there are people out there who aren’t having fun with it, and it resonates with you.

The biggest thing that lotteries can do is really just provide general player awareness, and that has evolved a lot in the past decade. There was a feeling in the lottery industry for a number of years that if there was any acknowledgment of the fact that people had a problem with our products, we were setting ourselves up for trouble. There was a head in the sand approach, quite honestly, for a number of years. I give a lot of credit to forward-thinking lottery directors like Arch Gleason and (the Minnesota Lottery’s) Don Feeney for showing people that it made good sense, and was practical from both a human and business standpoint, to plow through the rhetoric and put the facts out there. It’s amazing how full circle that we’ve come now, to where is working closely with the NCPG, a group that we probably would have viewed as hostile 15 years ago. We are now able to work in lock step with them with the same common goal of getting help for the people who have a problem playing our games.

What do you enjoy most about your role as the “voice” of conferences?

It began when we hosted World Meet in Louisville in 2007 – because of the full schedule with the combined NASPL-WLA event, we decided to speed up all the transitions by eliminating the traditional conference emcee. But we still needed someone to do room announcements and awards, so I took up that role. Over the next few years it evolved to where it is today, and I sort of fell into it. It has been a lot of fun, and I’ve gotten to know the staffs of different lotteries much more so than I otherwise would. It’s a really good chance for me to get out and meet a lot of the good people in the industry. I used to do a lot of this type of work back when I was freelancing, so it’s also a good chance for me to keep up that skill set.