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Lottery protected in gambling shake-up
The long-awaited response to the independent gaming review body holds welcome news for good causes. Jane Taylor reports
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The Government has accepted that the National Lottery needs special status to protect it from the potentially adverse effects of a more liberal gambling environment. In a white paper issued at the end of March, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport says: ‘The unique support which [the National Lottery] provides for good causes has led the Government to conclude that it should not operate on the same playing field as other kinds of gambling. The maintenance of the National Lottery’s current competitive position in broad terms must therefore provide a constraint on the extent of deregulation of other sectors of the gambling market.’
The gambling white paper, A Safe Bet for Success, paves the way for liberalisa-tion and growth in the gaming industry, after an independent review team led by Sir Alan Budd concluded last July that the current regulatory environment was out of date and unnecessarily restrictive.
The Budd team was not charged with reviewing the operation of the National Lottery, but was asked to look into the potential impact on it of more liberal gaming laws. It accepted that there could well be a drop-off in Lottery revenue as a result of increased competition, but rejected the assertions of the Lottery operator Camelot that the decline could be dramatic and significant.
Camelot had highlighted two main concerns: the introduction of ‘side-betting’ in which bookmakers can take bets on National Lottery winning numbers; and the relaxation of rules limiting ‘society’ lotteries – private society or charity competitors to the National Lottery.
The Government, in turn, has rejected the Budd team’s proposals in these key areas. The white paper proposes to maintain the prohibition on side betting. It accepts that it is unclear how much of a direct impact side betting would have on National Lottery sales, but says the risk is not worth running, as bookmakers can already take side-bets on various other numbers games, including international lottery results.
The case for relaxing society lottery rules is, the white paper says, stronger. Currently the maximum prize for society lotteries is £100,000 and not more than £1m of tickets may be sold. These lotteries provide valuable income for their good cause beneficiaries. But, says the white paper, ‘removal of the current limits would allow charities to compete head to head with the National Lottery; and large national charities, working with national retailers, might well choose to do so. Competition would probably reduce total income for good causes; prize pools would each potentially be people seeking a life-changing winning amount. This was exactly the argument for recognising the National Lottery as a natural monopoly in the first place; and it still holds good.’ Further, it says, the most popular charities would stand to gain at the expense of the enormous range of lesser-known causes supported through the National Lottery.
The white paper proposes therefore to double the upper limits on prizes and ticket sales for society lotteries. Commercial lotteries will remain illegal.
Finally, the Government says it will consider the role of the Lottery regulator and how it should dovetail with the proposed new single regulatory authority for gambling, as part of its recently announced review of the future of the National Lottery’s operation and regulation.
The white paper’s recommendations were welcomed by Camelot and by the Community Fund.
A Safe Bet for Success can be downloaded from www.culture.gov.uk/ROLE/gam-bling_report.html