Haitian gaming leader increases the lottery experience for players by introducing a mobile app with MySQL Enterprise Edition to ensure high reliability and security.
Introduction & Background
Lesly Center Enterprises is a leading Haitian company specializing in games of chance, most notably “borlette”—a local form of lottery that is deeply embedded in the country's social and economic fabric. With hundreds of sales terminals and a dominant presence in Port-au-Prince, Lesly Center is known for its scale, visibility, and innovation in a sector that employs tens of thousands and plays a major role in everyday life across Haiti.
Founded in 1964, Lesly Center has grown into a trusted national brand through a combination of experience, modernization, and a strong commitment to its customers. The company offers not only the excitement of lottery play but also a range of tools, technologies, and culturally relevant services that help players engage with the game in a more meaningful way.
Beyond its core gaming operations, Lesly Center contributes to community development through social and educational initiatives for underprivileged children, promoting artistic expression and social cohesion in a post-earthquake Haiti.
Business Challenges & Goals
Keen to showcase its commitment to innovation and customer care, Lesly Center set out to launch a new mobile lottery app that would offer users a faster, more convenient way to play—while also reducing the risks associated with carrying cash winnings in locations where personal security can be a concern. To achieve this, the company needed a robust, stable, and secure database platform that could support rapid app deployment while delivering high performance and availability from day one.
Lesly Center’s legacy systems—including its website and lottery POS terminals—also required stronger performance, scalability, and reliability. With the company’s steady growth over many years, relying on MySQL Community was beginning to limit the company’s ability to optimize transaction speed and maintain long-term stability across its core infrastructure.
Managing multiple databases had become increasingly time-consuming and complex. With several daily lottery draws creating high usage peaks—and with cumbersome backup processes impacting system performance—the database team had less time to focus on development and strategic initiatives.
Without professional support, resolving urgent issues and optimizing database performance placed additional strain on administrators and increased the risk of costly downtime during critical transaction periods.
Business Results & Metrics
Lesly Center boosted competitiveness by deploying MySQL Enterprise Edition to launch its innovative mobile application, PAKAPALA. Leveraging MySQL Enterprise Edition’s high performance, availability, and security features, the app provides a faster, safer, and more convenient lottery experience for players across Haiti.
By implementing MySQL Enterprise Edition, Lesly Center ensured strong database performance, especially for the high-volume transactions critical to the company’s gaming operations. Leveraging advanced features like table partitioning and the ability to run backups without locking tables, the database team has optimized query efficiency and processing speed, delivering a faster, more responsive platform.
Lesly Center has achieved zero downtime for its mobile app since launch, deploying MySQL Enterprise Edition in a high availability configuration with automatic failover on Microsoft Azure—essential in a business where even minutes offline can result in significant loss of revenue.
With MySQL Enterprise Backup, Lesly Center can now perform automated, non-disruptive hot backups—ensuring continuous data protection without impacting performance. With user activity surges across several lottery draws each day, this has simplified backup management and eliminated the risks and complexity of manual processes.
The company has also strengthened data security and ensured compliance with United States hosting regulations by leveraging MySQL Enterprise Edition’s advanced security features—offering players greater privacy protection. The launch of PAKAPALA further enhances customer care by reducing the need for in-person, cash-based lottery transactions—supporting a safer and more discreet user experience.
The ease of the MySQL Enterprise Edition implementation enabled Lesly Center to bring its mobile app rapidly to market, reinforcing its reputation as a customer-focused innovator. The company is now upgrading all legacy systems—including its lottery POS network and gambling website—from MySQL Community Edition to MySQL Enterprise Edition, having already smoothly migrated development environments by restoring backups to new servers using best-practices from MySQL Support.
MySQL Enterprise Edition has simplified database development and enhanced system scalability—accelerating new features, reducing costs, and providing the flexibility to meet the growing demand for PAKAPALA’s services.
The database team has streamlined administration by leveraging automated updates and advanced backup tools in MySQL Enterprise Edition, alongside performance-enhancing features like table partitioning—freeing engineers to focus on strategic initiatives instead of routine maintenance. As the company scales, it plans to enable additional tools like MySQL Enterprise Monitor to further enhance operational control and efficiency.
Access to MySQL Support has been a key advantage for Lesly Center, offering expert guidance on upgrades and migrations from MySQL Community Edition to MySQL Enterprise Edition. Furthermore, 24/7 assistance for troubleshooting and performance optimization has provided peace of mind, supporting smooth, uninterrupted service delivery.
Why MySQL Enterprise Edition?
Lesly Center selected MySQL Enterprise Edition for its powerful combination of enterprise-grade features, low total cost of ownership, proven reliability, and rapid deployment—essential for launching its mobile app on schedule. The ease of upgrading legacy systems from MySQL Community Edition was also a major decision factor, as it would enable increased operational efficiency without the disruption of a full system overhaul.
“We’ve used MySQL Community Edition for years without issues, but MySQL Enterprise Edition is a game changer for us—especially on the administration side. The hot backup capability, table partitioning, and dedicated expert support were exactly what we needed to handle our current operations smoothly and scale confidently for the future,” Mario Jasmin Junior said.
Next Steps
Following the successful launch of its mobile app on MySQL Enterprise Edition—and with remaining systems now being migrated—Lesly Center will soon be deploying a clustered MySQL architecture to unify all its databases into a single, scalable platform. This will enable greater resilience, simplified management, and long-term growth across its gaming infrastructure.