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Camelot fine produces windfall
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The Lottery distribution fund has gained an unexpected £157,000 donation from Camelot. Last month, after a year-long investigation, the Lottery regulator fined Camelot £10,000 for paying out 118 prize claims in error, totalling £141,372. All were claims that had been made after the expiry of the 30-day limit for lost or destroyed tickets: this, it turns out, is a breach of the licence rules, hence the fine.
The issue arose when a Hertfordshire couple, Kay and Martyn Tott, made a claim in March 2001 that they had bought a £3m winning ticket. Camelot refused their claim because the Totts made it outside the 30-day limit for lost tickets. However, the Lottery operator did admit at the time that it had used its discretion in a similar case to pay out a £132,000 claim to a Dudley syndicate – when it did not legally have any discretion. The National Lottery Commission demanded that Camelot conduct a full search of any other possible instances of ‘discretionary’ payment: 118 were found. The regulator lays the blame on a lack of proper supervision and guidance within Camelot which allowed junior staff to make bad decisions. The relatively small £10,000 fine, the regulator said, was justifiable because Camelot had been trying to do good by prize-winners and had not been deliberately flouting the rules. No prize money will be reclaimed, so Camelot has to bear the full financial recompense. On top of the fine, it has contributed to the distribution fund the value of all the prize money wrongly paid out, plus a penalty rate of interest, amounting to £157,020.