Camelot turns to the law over health lottery licensing

Chief executive Dianne Thompson said they believed the Gambling Commission made a “fundamental error” in allowing the Health Lottery, launched five months ago by Northern and Shell, to operate in its current form.

She said that by licensing the Health Lottery, the Gambling Commission was in “real danger” of setting a precedent allowing other commercial operators to set up as rivals to the National Lottery.

This would have a potentially “devastating” effect on returns to the National Lottery good causes and Lottery duty revenues to the Treasury, she said.

“As you can imagine, no business likes to be publicly at loggerheads with a regulator,” she announced at Camelot’s London offices yesterday.

“But the issue at stake here is so important, not just to us, but to the good causes that the National Lottery exists to support, that we can no longer remain silent.

“The issue is this: we believe that the Gambling Commission has made a fundamental error in allowing the Health Lottery, launched five months ago by Northern and Shell, to operate in its current form.”

Ms Thompson said Camelot believed that the Health Lottery, although licensed by the Gambling Commission, was unlawful.

She said current legislation distinguishes between two types of lottery – the small-scale type run by a society or a local authority and the large-scale one – the National Lottery, run by Camelot.

She said the Health Lottery amounted to a national lottery as it is advertised nationally, branded nationally, tickets are sold nationally and the draw is televised nationally.

“If the Health Lottery is a national lottery, then policy-makers and regulators need to ask themselves how this squares with the National Lottery Act 1993, which allows for just one national lottery,” she said.

“The Gambling Commission appears to have accepted at face value that the Health Lottery is actually promoted on behalf of 51 separate societies,” she added.

“And in doing so, the commission has allowed the Health Lottery to get round the restrictions imposed on other societies and to avoid the obligations and the responsibilities laid on us,” she said.

“As a result, the Health Lottery gives much less of each pound to good causes than we do. They give 20 pence in the pound. We give 28 pence in the pound.

“And it pays no lottery duty whereas we pay 12 pence in every pound. Our total contribution to society is 41 per cent of revenues, which is double theirs.”

Ms Thompson said she had “no problem” with Richard Desmond, owner of Northern and Shell or the company itself.

“I know Richard, I like Richard and I admire his enterprise,” she said.

“My fight is not with him.”