Health Lottery Watchdog Investigation

28/10/2011 10:04:33

There have been calls for the Gambling Commission – the official watchdog which regulates all types of commercial gambling in Great Britain – to investigate the Health Lottery in an effort to ensure that it isn’t harming smaller charitable lotteries. The official operator of the UK Lotto game is one of the organisations which has asked the Gambling Commission to take a closer look at the charitable aspect of the Health Lottery, and Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has submitted a similar request to the watchdog.

The fear among many is that the Health Lottery, whilst having good intentions, could end up hurting as many charities as it helps. One problem seems to be that the Health Lottery is being run as a collective of 51 society lotteries rather than a national lottery. This means that it doesn’t have to pay duty to the government, and also that it is allowed to make more profit from every £1 of ticket sales. Despite those factors, the amount of money that the Health Lottery sets aside for charity is just 20.34p in every £1, whilst the amount set aside in national lottery games in the UK is 28p in every £1.

Another concern is that the success of individual charity lotteries may actually suffer if people choose to buy a Health Lottery ticket instead. Many charitable organisations in the country use lotteries to raise funds for themselves, and if ticket sales for those lotteries was to fall then so would the amount of money raised. This would mean the charity having to try and operate on even less money than it did before the Health Lottery was launched just last month.

The Gambling Commission will be looking to make sure that the Health Lottery is operating within the law in all areas. We suspect this will also mean examining whether or not it should be viewed as a collective of society lotteries (as is the case now) or whether it should instead be viewed as a national lottery to make it comply with the same rules as the UK Lotto and other nationwide lottery games.

There is no official timetable for any watchdog investigation into the Health Lottery, so all we can do is allow developments to unfold at their own pace. We will of course keep you fully informed as and when new information comes to light.