Camelot to get six-month National Lottery extension

The tender process to select the next operator for the UK National Lottery has been delayed due to Covid-19.

UK.- Camelot Group is to get a six-month extension on its contract to run the UK National Lottery until the end of July 2023. The tender process to select the next operator has been delayed by three months because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The UK Gambling Commission, which oversees licensing of the lottery, had scheduled to begin the new tender process in the first half of the year with John Tanner as Executive Director and Senior Responsible Officer, and Andrew Wilson as Commercial Director for the process.

But it has now confirmed that the initial selection questionnaire to begin the first phase of the competition process to select the next licence holder will now not be issued until August at the earliest.

The Commission had already announced a two-month delay to the process in February. Potential bidders Virgin Group and Australia’s Tabcorp have since said they were no longer interested in the operation, leaving the Czech Republic’s Sazka and British media mogul Richard Desmond, whose Northern & Shell group runs the Health Lottery, as the main possible contenders to challenge Camelot. 

They have criticised previous delays for playing to Camelot’s favour as the current operator seeks to extend what will have been almost three decades at the helm of the lottery when the current licence expires in 2023. 

Camelot has operated the UK’s National Lottery National Lottery ever since it was created back in 1994. It won new contracts in 2001 and 2007, not without controversy.

The Gambling Commission told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper: “The extended timetable is designed to enable potential applicants to make adequate preparations for a fair, open and robust competition.”

Earlier in the month, Camelot announced that it had generated a record £7.9billion in National Lottery revenue for the 2019-20 financial year thanks to digital growth.