Camelot receives European recognition for responsible gaming standards

Awarded in early June in Barcelona at the annual European Lotteries Congress, the certification recognises Camelot’s mature and well-established responsible gaming programme, aimed at preventing excessive and underage play. Certification was
carried out by independent assessor Deloitte LLP.

Camelot is one of only 14 operators to have been awarded the accolade to date, highlighting its commitment to setting and maintaining the highest standards of responsible gaming in both the UK and worldwide lottery sectors.

Dianne Thompson, Camelot’s Chief Executive, has chaired the European Lotteries Responsible Gaming Commission since 2005 and, together with EL President Friedrich Stickler, is now encouraging all lotteries to commit to responsible gaming and adhere to the highest standards of responsible play.

She said: “I’m delighted that Camelot has achieved certification by the European Lotteries Association. As the operator of the UK National Lottery, we exceed our already stringent regulatory requirements in setting and maintaining the highest standards of responsible play in the UK. In my position as Chair of the Responsible Gaming Committee, I would like to encourage other lotteries to do the same.

“At Camelot, sustainability is at the heart of our business. We work hard to ensure that National Lottery sales continue to grow in a socially responsible and sustainable way, so that even more money is raised for the Good Causes. The UK National Lottery is the sixth largest lottery in the world in terms of sales, but we are ranked just 64th in the world in terms of per capita spend. On average, our players spend just £3 per week, which highlights the success of our strategy to encourage many people to play but to
spend relatively little.”

Camelot has played a leading role in developing and implementing the EL’s Responsible Gaming Certification Framework, ratified by 60 out of 62 lottery operators in 2009. The framework assesses performance in areas such as research, employee training, sales force programmes, game design, remote gaming channels, advertising and marketing, player education, stakeholder engagement and reporting.

Camelot employs numerous carefully-developed player protection measures to ensure that consumers enjoy playing National Lottery games responsibly both in-store and online. Together with its pioneering Game Design Protocol and GAM-GaRD tools to assess potential problems posed by new games, Camelot continues to see excellent results with its groundbreaking Operation Child test-purchasing initiative that promotes retailer vigilance against selling National Lottery products to underage customers.

In February 2010, Camelot also received global recognition as a responsible lottery operator, having been granted the highest level – Level 4 – of the World Lottery Association (WLA) Responsible Gaming Framework.

Camelot’s long-term strategy for growth, with sustainability at its heart, has now seen total National Lottery sales grow by 14.4% over the last five years. In addition, in the year to 31 March 2010, Camelot increased total National Lottery sales across its portfolio of games to us$ 8 million, an increase of us$ 449 million on the previous year’s figure– and the second best ever sales since The National Lottery launched in 1994.

The further rise in sales saw Camelot deliver the best annual returns, us$ 2.2 million to the Good Causes in 10 years. To date, National Lottery players have raised over us$ 35.6 billion for the Good Causes, with more than 330,000 individual awards made across the UK.