In a country that has a history of gambling prohibition, this state-owned company was founded in 1968 to offer legal, transparent, and safe ways for Singaporeans to bet. Today, Singapore Pools offers multiple lottery games, sports betting and e-payment services. Its roster of products includes Toto, which is a six-out-of-49 state lottery game that launched in 1968 and remains one of the company’s most popular offerings; Singapore Sweep, a seven-digit sweepstakes that hit the market in 1969; and 4D, which debuted in May 1986, offering weekly prizes ranging from $3 million to $2 million. The company also offers e-sports and horse racing.
Yeo and his team are working to transform the company from a traditional, counter-service organization into an agile, digitally empowered business. This work became even more urgent during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it required many staff to work remotely and heightened the need for reliable data infrastructure.
The company rolled out new digital channels and a modernised platform for customers to onboard, manage their accounts and bet online. This has helped drive customer engagement, improve service and support the organisation’s efforts to work with government agencies on combating illegal gambling activities. It also enables employees to access and analyze data in real time, allowing them to quickly detect problems and automate response actions, further reducing IT downtime.
With so much at stake, the company needs to be able to rely on its IT infrastructure, including its cloud-based services. To meet these demands, Yeo and his team turned to Oracle. The move to the cloud enabled them to unlock additional capacity that has dramatically reduced the company’s reliance on third-party providers, which had previously been responsible for most of its data storage and processing.
Yeo’s team also implemented Oracle Cloud Observability and Management to streamline IT monitoring. It enables them to see the status of all layers of the IT stack, which reduces troubleshooting time by half and ensures proper and thorough governance. This has also allowed them to improve application performance and minimize outages by identifying and resolving issues in minutes, instead of hours.
Beyond leveraging IT to improve business outcomes, the company aims to be a “Company for Good.” To this end, it established iShine Cloud in 2018, which provides other charities with affordable, integrated suites of charity-specific solutions via a secure, cloud-based IT platform. This helps them improve their productivity, governance and efficiency, so they can focus on serving their beneficiaries. The company also supports a range of social causes, including education and health. Its philanthropic arm, iShine Foundation, raises funds for these organisations. It also focuses on building capabilities in young people, especially those from low-income families. The foundation works to enhance the lives of children in Singapore through various community initiatives, including the development of the arts and sport. Its efforts have been recognized with numerous awards and accolades. These include the inaugural National Youth Development Fund Award and the Champion of Social Innovation award at the Asia Enterprise Leaders Summit.
