India’s Sugal & Damani in the race for the UK National Lottery

India’s biggest lottery operator is the second group to confirm its participation in the tender for the next National Lottery licence.

UK.- Sugal & Damani Group, India’s biggest lottery operator, has revealed that it has applied to compete in the tender for the fourth UK National Lottery licence.

The group is the second company to publicly confirm its participation in the tender, following the Czech Republic’s Sazka.

It previously participated in the tender for the National Lottery licence renewal in 2007 when it lost out to the current incumbent, Camelot, which has run the lottery since its inception in 1994.

Sugal & Damani claims to have a 75 per cent share of the online lottery business in India, with more than 7 million online customers active on its platform.

Its business technology division, Skilrock Technologies, provides lottery and other services in 26 jurisdictions and its technology is used at over 200,000 points of sale.

Group chief executive, Kamlesh Vijay, said: “As a leader in operating lotteries across India and other jurisdictions, Sugal & Damani has shown its deep interest to operate the UK National Lottery since 2007 when it participated and [was] also selected as a reserve bidder by qualifying all required standards like propriety, technology, player protection, channel management and financial capability.”

Vijay said that although the National Lottery still had a strong following, it was facing significant challenges through competition from private operators and needed to innovate.

He said: “Being an organisation with deep-rooted innovation in every sphere of our activity we are happy to be in the competition.

“We are looking for a fair and open competition that the [Gambling Commission] has initiated, we are very much in the game, we are in the final stages of creating a strong consortium of credible partners, the details of which will be shared in due course.”

The deadline to complete the Gambling Commission’s initial selection questionnaire to enter the tender process passed on October 2.

Until now only Sazka has announced that it is participating in the process, although it is assumed that Camelot will have applied for the licence for what would be a fourth tenure.

The next National Lottery licence will run for ten years from 2023. The Gambling Commission is expected to announce its preferred bidder in September 2021.