If you’ve ever popped into Richdale on Humphrey Street on your way home from work or gone to the Mobil gas station at Vinnin Square to pick up a scratch ticket or two, you are most likely playing a lottery game provided by one of Swampscott’s own.
Swampscott native Pat McHugh is the CEO of Scientific Games, a company that provides lottery games and technology to roughly 150 lotteries worldwide. It is the market leader, producing 70% of the globe’s $100 billion of annual lottery scratch-ticket sales.
“We’re the company behind the brand of a lottery,” McHugh said. “If you’ve ever bought a lottery ticket anywhere in the world, there’s a good chance it’s one of our games.”
Swampscott native Pat McHugh is the CEO of Scientific Games
McHugh now resides in Georgia, where the company is based, with his wife, Debbie, and three sons, Matthew, Aidan, and Bryce. He is the son of Irish immigrants who landed in Swampscott. Growing up in a large family with seven siblings and many cousins, he said his parents always had a focus on service and community, which was instilled in McHugh.
“I had a deep respect for people who served the community,” McHugh said.
During college, he became a track-and-field coach at Swampscott High School, using what he learned as a track and cross-country athlete himself to lead teams to multiple conference and state championships at the same school he graduated from. McHugh also became an officer in the Swampscott Police Department, a job that was prominent in his extended family.
In both of these positions, he was able to honor his family’s community focus. However, budget cuts to the Police Department later led to McHugh’s career as an officer being placed on hold.
Yet, while seeming to be down on his luck, McHugh quite literally “hit the lottery,” if you will., McHugh had worked on a number of community organizations, and met Jim Hosker.
Hosker was a Nahant resident and former executive director of the Massachusetts State Lottery. At the time, Hosker had retired from his position, and was working on the “supplier” side of the lottery industry when he approached McHugh, asking if he wanted to try out the lottery industry. From there, all the cards fell into place for McHugh.
Hosker died at the age of 88 in 2020, and many reflected on the impact he had on the lottery industry. Attorney Thomas C. Demakis of Lynn referred to him as “the Tom Brady of lottery
directors,” while others said that he successfully guided many people with his experience and knowledge of lotteries.
One of the people he guided was McHugh, who looked back on the day that Hosker offered him an entry-level job at a company that is now ironically a competitor of Scientific Games.
“It was a turn that changed the course of my life and I’m forever grateful for that,” he said.
From there, McHugh steadily climbed the ranks at the company, working nearly every minute of every day and traveling around the world to learn the systems and operations of launching lotteries as a project manager.
“I worked around the clock seven days a week learning the business and loved it,” McHugh said.
After living in Europe for several years, McHugh returned to the states, moving through many management positions before running US Lottery Systems, then taking on Global Lottery Systems, where he was able to triple the profits of the business.
All of this led him to becoming the CEO of Scientific Games’ Lottery Division in 2019. In 2022, McHugh led the $6 billion sale of the division to become a privately held stand-alone company.
Today, the company, headquartered in Alpharetta, Ga., has 3,500 employees in 50 countries, generating $1.2 billion in annual revenue. The company celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, and provides technology and services to roughly 150 lotteries worldwide.
Lotteries generate a massive $300 billion annually in sales, McHugh’s company provides games and services to lotteries ranging from the Massachusetts State Lottery, one of its largest customers, to a government-sponsored sports-betting program in Turkey, which was started a few years ago and has become the largest of its kind in the world.
With the amount of money generated, and the number of lotteries worldwide relying on the company, there is little rest. However, for McHugh, stepping into the lottery business was worth the gamble.
“I got into the industry by accident. I kind of found I had a knack for project management and organizing complex activities,” McHugh said. “It’s a very, very fast-paced industry, which I love. It makes it exciting.”
