UK Gambling Commission Introduces New Standards for Society Lottery Operators

The Commission’s new standards are intended to help society lottery customers better understand where the money raised from ticket sales goes.

From 4 April 2018 all lotteries will have to:

• make it clear to consumers before they buy a lottery ticket exactly which society or charity the lottery proceeds are going to
• publish what proportion of money raised from lottery ticket sales in the previous year was returned directly for the purposes of the society.

The changes followed a consultation on new codes for society and local authority lottery operators – as well as external lottery managers (ELMs) – to improve transparency for players. The Commission has considered the responses provided and published the consultation response.

Commission Executive Director for Lotteries Sarah Gardner, said:

“We want to make sure that consumers have as much information as possible to make informed choices about their gambling. In lotteries, we know that players are motivated by a range of things, particularly the chance to contribute to good causes, so it is only right that they understand what that means in practice.”

“Our regulatory approach puts consumers right at the heart of everything that we do. This has been built on further in our new three-year strategy, where we say we will consider whether any further changes are necessary to ensure that society lotteries can continue to make important contributions to society, whilst being run in a way which is fair and safe for consumers.”

“In particular, we have said it is important that information is available for consumers to help them to understand which good causes are being supported and how much of their money goes to the good cause.”