State lottery mobile app analytics on Android should answer the same simple question as on Apple: Are more players finding your official app, trusting it, and installing it?
Google Play Console is where that data lives. You can use the web version or the Play Console app. You do not need a data team. You need a short checklist, the right metrics, and a habit of acting on what you see.
This guide walks you through Play Console the way a lottery product, marketing, or digital team actually uses it.
Note: This walkthrough is for Android and Google Play Console. Looking for Apple? Read the App Store Connect breakdown. Comparing both stores? Read the iOS vs Android metrics crosswalk.
Where to look in Play Console
Play Console spreads the story across a few pages. For lottery acquisition, these matter most:
- Dashboard: snapshot of key metrics, trends, and insights
- Statistics: custom reports. Absolute numbers for your app, plus a Compare to peers tab
- Store analysis: installs that came from Google Play
- Store listing conversion analysis: how well your listing turns visitors into installs
- Android vitals: crashes, ANRs, and performance
- Review analysis: summaries of what players are saying
Hover the question mark next to a metric when you need Google’s exact definition.
Dashboard: pin what you actually care about
Open Play Console, pick your lottery app, click Dashboard.
Scroll to Monitor trends. Click Add your KPIs. Pin the metrics you check every week. Your pins are yours. They do not change anyone else’s view on the developer account.
For a state lottery app, a solid starter set is: user acquisitions (or new users), uninstall / user loss, store listing visitors, store listing acquisitions, impressions, average rating or Google Play rating, crashes.
Statistics: build the report you reuse
Statistics is where you dig in.
- Open Statistics.
- Stay on App statistics for your real numbers. Switch to Compare to peers when you want context.
- Pick a date range. Flip Compare on if you want two ranges side by side.
- Choose a metric. Some metrics have extras. User acquisitions can mean new users, returning users, or all users.
- Hit Edit next to the metric to set how it is calculated and which time intervals to use.
- Use View by to slice by country, Android version, device, language, carrier, form factor, or app version.
- Save the setup under Save to quick reports so you are not rebuilding it every Monday.
- Export to CSV when you need a spreadsheet or a client-ready dump.
What “rolling” means
A 30-day rolling average is the mean of the data from the preceding 30 days, ending on the day you are viewing. It is a moving look-back. It is not a calendar month labeled “October” or “September.”
Clean example (10,000 a day). September closed at 270,000 new users. That is a calendar month: September 1 through 30. That is what goes on the MoM slide.
Mid-month. Today is October 15. Your 30-day rolling average is 10,000 new users a day. That window is September 16 through October 15. Part last month, part this month. Not “October” yet. Pace check: 10,000 × 30 = 300,000. Stack that next to September’s 270,000. You are tracking hotter mid-month.
End of month. Today is October 31. Rolling still reads 10,000 a day. Pace is still about 300,000. Use that as a smoothed “lately” check. For the real October MoM number, use the calendar month from Daily / per interval, not the rolling label.
Tomorrow the window always slides one day. A jackpot spike raises the average. A quiet day eases it down.
Same idea for Monthly Active Users in Play Console. MAU is often a rolling 28-day count of people who opened the app. On October 15, that is roughly September 18 through October 15. It is not “everyone who opened in the calendar month of October.”
Daily vs 30-day rolling (Installed audience and similar metrics)
Some Play metrics, including Installed audience, only give you Daily or a 30-day rolling average.
- Use Daily for the end-of-month / MoM report. Set the date range to September, then October. Read the daily points inside each calendar month. For a stock metric like Installed audience, compare month-end days (September 30 vs October 31) or the average of daily values inside each month. That is what you file as September vs October.
- Use 30-day rolling as the pulse. It smooths noise and answers “how have we been doing lately?” Mid-month or month-end, you can turn it into a pace (average × 30) and compare to last month’s closed calendar number. Do not drop a rolling average into a cell labeled “October” unless you say it is a rolling pace.
Short answer: for the board MoM report, prefer Daily inside the calendar month. Use rolling to stay oriented between reports, not as the official October total.
Per interval is the raw count inside each bucket you chose (day, week, calendar month). Not a sliding average.
The metrics that matter for lottery acquisition
Play has a lot of metrics. For getting players, start here.
Users vs devices
A user is a Google Play person. One person can own multiple phones. A device is one Android device. If a phone is wiped or handed to someone else, Play may count it as a new device.
Lottery teams usually care about both. Users answer “how many people.” Devices answer “how many phones.”
Installed audience and install base
- Installed audience: users who have your app on at least one device that was used in the last 30 days
- Install base: active devices with your app installed (device turned on in the last 30 days)
These are your “people who still have us” numbers. Installed audience often only offers Daily or a 30-day rolling average. For MoM, use Daily inside each calendar month (or month-end days). Use rolling to smooth noise and check pace.
Acquisitions and losses
- User acquisitions: users who installed and did not already have the app on another device
- New users: first-time installers
- Returning users: had it before, uninstalled everywhere, came back
- User loss: uninstalled from all devices, or went inactive for over 30 days
- Device acquisition / device loss / new devices / returning devices: same story at the device level
Lottery read: New users after a jackpot week. Returning users after a trust scare or a long gap. User loss after a buggy release.
Impressions
- Total impressions: times your app was seen on Google Play (icon, listing, promo, related surfaces)
- Device impressions: unique devices that saw you that day
- User impressions: unique users who saw you that day
Same idea as Apple impressions: how often people even see that the official app exists.
Store listing visitors and acquisitions
- Store listing visitors: users who opened your listing and did not already have the app
- Store listing acquisitions: users who visited the listing and installed, and did not already have the app
That pair is your Play listing funnel. Visitors who look. Acquisitions who install. Use the Store listing conversion analysis page when you want that story spelled out.
First opens, DAU, MAU
- First opens: devices that opened the app for the first time after install (within 180 days of install)
- Daily Active Users (DAU): users who opened the app that day
- Monthly Active Users (MAU): users who opened the app in a rolling 28-day period
Install without a first open is a soft win. Lottery apps need the open: check tickets, see results, trust the official source.
Retention (2, 3, 7, 14, 28 day)
Play reports device retention and user retention at those day marks after the first open. The retention event is counted on the day it happens. Only the most recent first open counts.
Lottery read: Did they come back for the next draw, or was it a one-and-done install?
Loss rate
User loss divided by installed audience. How fast people are leaving relative to who still has you.
Privacy and “is this the full picture?”
Some Play metrics are built from users who share usage and diagnostics data. Google adjusts many Console metrics so they better reflect the full user base, not only the opt-in group.
Crashes and ANRs are a clearer opt-in case. Those reports come from devices where the user agreed to share usage and diagnostics.
When a chart looks thinner than your gut says it should, check the metric help text. Still enough signal to steer a lottery app week to week.
Compare to peers
On Statistics, open Compare to peers.
Numbers here are normalized for scale so a smaller lottery app can sit next to bigger apps without the raw totals lying to you. Pick a peer group. Filter by country when you need it. Comparisons only show when Google has enough apps in that group for the metric.
Lottery read: Same idea as Apple peer benchmarks. You are compared to a peer set Google defines for your app’s lane, not “every casino clone on Play.” Use it to see if your growth rate is healthy for apps like yours.
Change analysis on the chart highlights which dimensions moved the most between the start and end of your range. Useful when installs spike or crash and you need the “what changed” answer fast.
Events timeline
After you configure a Statistics report, an events timeline sits under the chart. Hover the dots. Tie a campaign, a release, or a jackpot week to the metric line.
For lottery: did crashes jump after a release? Did acquisitions jump after a jackpot campaign? Did uninstalls rise after a bad update?
Ratings and crashes
- Average rating / ratings volume / cumulative average / Google Play rating: stars and how many. Google Play rating is what shoppers see. It leans on recent ratings.
- Crashes and ANRs: stability. Pacific Time. Opt-in diagnostics. Check Android vitals when trust is on the line.
A simple weekly checklist for lottery teams
- Open Dashboard. Confirm your pinned KPIs.
- Check new users / user acquisitions, user loss, store listing visitors, store listing acquisitions, impressions.
- Open Store listing conversion analysis. Is the listing earning installs?
- Slice Statistics by country. Your home state should dominate.
- Glance at Compare to peers for growth context.
- Check Android vitals after any release.
- If conversion is soft, fix listing creatives and copy before you spend more on ads.
FAQ: State lottery mobile app analytics on Google Play
What is Google Play Console used for in lottery app analytics?
It is Google’s dashboard for installs, listing performance, peers, ratings, and crashes for your Android app.
What is the difference between users and devices?
Users are people. Devices are phones or tablets. One player can count as one user and multiple devices.
What does a 30-day rolling average mean?
It is the mean of the preceding 30 days ending on the day you are viewing. Example: 10,000 a day on October 15 means September 16 through October 15. Pace: 10,000 × 30 = 300,000. Compare that to last month’s closed calendar total. For MoM slides, use Daily inside the calendar month. Rolling is the pulse, including mid-month and end-of-month pace checks.
Should I use Daily or 30-day rolling for Installed audience MoM?
Use Daily for the official September vs October report. Use 30-day rolling to see smoothed recent trend and to project pace. Do not treat rolling as the labeled calendar month unless you call it a pace.
What are store listing visitors and store listing acquisitions?
Visitors opened your Play listing and did not already have the app. Acquisitions visited and installed. Together they show listing conversion.
How do Play peer comparisons work?
Compare to peers shows normalized performance against a peer group Google selects for your app’s lane, with optional country filters when enough apps exist.
Are Play Console metrics always complete?
Some inputs come from users who share data. Google adjusts many metrics to better represent the full base. Crashes and ANRs are clearly opt-in. Read the help text on each metric.
Bottom line
Google Play Console is not a mystery. For state lottery mobile app analytics on Android, it is a weekly scoreboard: who saw you, who opened the listing, who installed, who stayed, who left, and how you sit next to peers.
Pin a few KPIs. Build one Statistics quick report. Watch listing conversion. Fix the listing before you pour more money into traffic.
Want help making sense of your Play Console Analytics? Email me. I can deliver a weekly Analytics report or a one-time report tailored to your lottery app. cbluford@lissiland.com