British Gambling Commission makes concessions to exempt society lotteries from some reforms
Many society lotteries will be exempt from new rules for cross-selling and responsible gambling.
UK.- The Gambling Commission’s deputy chief executive Sarah Gardner has outlined a series of concessions for society lotteries. Speaking at the Lotteries Council Annual Conference, she said that lotteries that raise money for charitable causes would be exempt from some of the regulator’s latest reforms.
These include the introduction of new tools to give consumers more ways to manage their gambling and maintain deposit limits on online accounts plus new rules for transparency in the protection of customer funds. These rules will apply from October this year.
The society lotteries provision will remain exempt from RTS 12 under the description ‘subscription lotteries’. Only society lotteries with instant win products will be covered and will need to be compliant by October. Meanwhile, the regulator has decided to require only society lotteries that offer high frequency or instant win lotteries to abide by the new rules on transparency of customer funds protection.
Garner also noted that the Gambling Commission had also made changes to its new rules for direct marketing, or cross-selling, to exclude society lotteries following its consultation on the matter.
She said: “Originally we included land-based and lotteries sectors in these changes. But thanks to the significant and well evidenced responses we had from people in this room amongst others, we took the decision not to include land-based gambling and the lottery sectors in scope of this requirement. Positive engagement leading to positive decisions.”
However, Gardner noted that all lotteries need to comply with the Gambling Commission’s new rules for regulatory returns. She said: “We have seen some anomalies in reported lottery submissions and regulatory returns. We’ve already addressed these with those who are affected and I’m pleased to say we’re already seeing improvements in the quality of the data we hold. Secondly, it’s become apparent that some operators are not reporting changes to key personnel.
“This is important because we can’t make you aware of changes if we don’t have up to date details. It’s a requirement of a licence to keep this information up to date with the commission, so if you think your organisation may have an issue, tell one of the team here this week and we can make sure its sorted out.”
Society lottery proceeds surpass £1bn for the first time
Gardner praised society lotteries for their contributions to charitable causes. She noted that participation data for July to October 2024 from the new Gambling Survey for Great Britain shows that society lotteries remain the second most popular form of gambling in Britain after the National Lottery with a participation rate of 16 per cent. In third is scratchcards on 13 per cent. She said the rate for society lotteries had been consistent throughout the data for 2024.
She said: “For the first time in our 2023-24 industry statistics, society lottery proceeds exceeded £1bn. This represented an increase of 11.9 per cent on previous year and a 27 per cent increase on the last pre-lockdown period of April 2019 to March 2020. And whilst we don’t monitor the totals for smaller society lotteries, it also means that £461.5m in contributions to good causes were raised. That’s a huge amount of public good that can be delivered as a result of your work.”
However, Garner stressed that maintaing this requires work. “In order to continue to play the positive role in our communities that you do, the public needs rock solid confidence in you and the rules that govern your products. And those rules need to keep up with the changing world we live in,” she said.
Action on illegal lotteries
Gardner also told attendees that the regulator remains committed to tackling illegal lotteries and urged operators to continue to collaborate.
She said: “We receive hundreds of referrals for potential illegal draws or prize competitions, all of which we review. And if we focus on just one area, during the period 1st August 2024 to 24 April 2025, we have received and referred to our Enforcement team 93 reports of potentially non-compliant free draws and prize competitions. And rest assured where those investigations uncover illegal or non-compliant activity, we take action.”
