What next for the National Lottery?

We are disappointed that Camelot chose not to make itself available for scrutiny of its performance as the National Lottery operator.

The Gambling Commission has followed its predecessors in overseeing a poorly managed competition, and we are concerned by reports of up to £600 million in compensation being taken from the good causes budget.

The Gambling Commission must vigilantly monitor Allwyn’s good cause returns to ensure that fund distributors are not once again short-changed.

The Gambling Commission should, within six months of the licence process being complete, review its licence competition design process, highlighting areas of failure, and report back to the Committee with its findings. This should include an assessment of changes necessary to transparency and confidentiality rules to facilitate greater parliamentary oversight of the next licence competition. (Paragraph 35) Gambling Harms

The fine imposed against Camelot earlier this year regarding the National Lottery’s inappropriate targeting of vulnerable consumers is concerning enough in isolation, and more so when considered alongside concerns raised by gambling harms experts that such targeting is being used to push forms of gambling that may be more harmful, and which return less funding to good causes.

The Lottery operator and Gambling Commission should collect and share player data with the public, in order to enable independent research into the users of the National Lottery and the potential harms faced by different demographics. This should include frequency of play, types of game played and money spent, as well as demographic data.

We recommend that the Gambling Commission commissions research into the gambling harms of National Lottery advertising and marketing, including any personalisation that may lead to the promotion of higher-risk products to vulnerable players. We would expect that to occur within the next six months and for the Committee to then be kept up to date on the details of the research and its findings and policy changes that will result from it.

We think that any operator should, by default, meet the Gambling Commission’s suggested donation to GambleAware, and have an ambition to go beyond that. We will reassess this issue following the publication of the gambling White Paper.

While it is clearly the case that the National Lottery poses significantly fewer gambling harms than many other forms of gambling, to play a National Lottery game is undeniably gambling, which the National Lottery operator should bear in mind. Including GambleAware branding on National Lottery products would serve 36 What next for the National Lottery? two discrete but connected purposes. First, it would signpost to National Lottery players the avenues to go down should they begin to suffer gambling harms from National Lottery products. Secondly, as 44% of people play the National Lottery, it would also massively increase the visibility of GambleAware, making players more likely to contact the service should they or someone close to them begin to suffer gambling harms from other forms of gambling.

We recommend that, with immediate effect, all National Lottery products should carry GambleAware branding.

We recommend that the Gambling Commission carries out an evaluation of the effectiveness of delivering the stated objectives of money raised through fines and given to third parties. This evaluation should then be published along with all relevant metrics and data.

Exemptions within the ban on gambling on credit are ill thought through and subject to discretion. While the original ban goes most of the way to preventing this form of gambling harm, opt-outs for retailers maintain the possibility for those at risk of gambling harms to gamble on credit.

We recommend that this loophole, which allows consumers to continue to gamble using credit cards, should be closed as soon as practicable, following discussions with retailers. (Paragraph 72) Distributing Bodies

We congratulate moves by Arts Council England to rebalance funding across the UK and remain interested in how wider aims to facilitate access to arts and culture might be aligned with the Government’s levelling up agenda. National Lottery- funded organisations and projects could assist in offering opportunities that improve the lives and life chances of people across the UK.

We recommend that the Government continues to ensure greater alignment between its investment priorities into areas of high economic or social deprivation and the distribution priorities of National Lottery fund distributors.

We await the publication of the evaluation of the Culture Recovery Fund and hope that the Department is able to use it as the foundation for future crisis planning. There is otherwise no guarantee that the admirable response of National Lottery distributor bodies is replicable in the future.

Public awareness of the link between the National Lottery and funding for good causes remains lower than it should be. This risks the public losing sight of the National Lottery’s original purpose, to raise money for good causes, and instead focusing on the prizes on offer, which could lead to public calls for a reduction in good cause returns in order to boost prizes.

We recommend that a clear majority of National Lottery product advertising should prominently feature the link between playing the National Lottery and supporting good causes. (Paragraph 103) What next for the National Lottery? 37

We recommend that, over the next six months, the distributing bodies consider how they might more effectively ensure that recipients of funding ensure that those benefitting from that funding are aware of the source of their funding. We would like to receive a report from the National Lottery Distribution Fund to inform us of changes to be made. (Paragraph 104) The Wider Sector

We do not consider that society lotteries pose a threat to the charitable giving of the National Lottery, in line with the views of the Gambling Commission and the Department. Recent years have seen significant reforms to society lottery regulation that have allowed total sales and good cause returns to reach record levels at the same time as the National Lottery achieved record sales.

We recommend that the 10% rule for society lotteries should be removed, instead allowing individual society lotteries to set their own prizes, up to a limit of £500,000.

It is difficult to understand why the National Lottery has been so hostile towards society lotteries while largely ignoring prize draws. It merits further investigation as to whether prize draws, with such large revenues and little regulation, are competing for ticket sales with the National Lottery and the wider lottery sector, potentially significantly reducing the money returned to good causes as a result.

We recommend that prize draws be subject to regulation such as that which applies to society lotteries, including on the percentage of sales that must be donated to good causes. We hope that the upcoming gambling White Paper will provide detail on the Government’s plans in this area. (Paragraph 124) 38 What next for the National Lottery?