The UK National Lottery Might Get Suspended: British Newspapers Claim

From the first draw almost 20 years ago, the UK National Lottery has become one of the most popular types of gambling in the UK. Following the news of a licence transfer which resulted in multiple lawsuits, the UK National Lottery and its operators are facing uncertain times. Although it’s yet to be officially declared, plenty of daily newspapers in the country are claiming that the unprecedented suspension of the UK National Lottery may very well happen.

Licence Transfer, UKGC Fines and Lawsuits

Since the very beginning, the UK National Lottery has been run by the Camelot Group. The last time it renewed the licence was in 2009 which is valid until 2024. The UKGC had plans to transfer the license to Allwyn Entertainment.

Unlike Camelot, Allwyn operates on a global level with massive lottery sales in countries like Austria, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Italy, and Greece. In fact, the Allwyn website has already started marketing itself to be the “preferred applicant for the fourth National Lottery license”.

The UKGC had already made its decision regarding transferring the licence to the multi-national company earlier in March this year. Only a few days after that, UKGC supposedly fined Camelot UK Limited a massive £3.15M due to failures with the mobile app.

It was quite obvious that UK National Lottery’s “guardian for 28 years” was not going to accept the decision. It sued the UKGC in the country’s high court.

CEO of the Camelot Group, Nigel Railton, is determined that the authority is “making a mistake”. He quotes, “We firmly believe that the Gambling Commission has got this decision badly wrong. Despite lengthy correspondence, the Commission has failed to provide a satisfactory response. More than 1,000 Camelot employees work tirelessly to successfully operate the National Lottery under the current licence, and at the very least, they are owed a proper explanation.”

At the same time, IGT filed a lawsuit against the Commission. Although these 2 are separate legal actions, the end goal for both is the same. To overturn the Commission’s decision to transfer the licence to Allwyn Entertainment.

Both of the lawsuits claim that the commission changed the rules in the final weeks of the licence renewal process, throwing Camelot out of the equation. According to a report by The Telegraph, “Allwyn claimed it would raise £38 billion for good causes, a greater amount than Camelot projected in its bid and, therefore, arguably riskier. While certain details of the bids and final scores were shrouded in secrecy, the IGT lawsuit reveals that Allwyn scored 87.2% and Camelot 85.7%. Both scored risk factor of zero.”

The IGT lawsuit also includes a demand for payment due to the damages in profit loss and the costs of supporting the Camelot Bid.

If you’re wondering what’s IGT’s role in all of this, it’s actually the supplier for all the games you see on the National lottery website. These are RNG games, similar to online casino games that require a developer and regular maintenance in the backend.

Knowing how legal proceedings go in the country, it’s safe to assume that it might take months if not years to resolve this dispute between all of the associated parties. And since that happens, it would be too controversial for any of the parties to continue the operations of the National Lottery.

Hence, the projection of the newspapers that the lottery might be suspended for the first time in almost 30 years!

The UK National Lottery At a Glance

Over the last 28 years, the lottery has raised over £45 billion for good causes. 660,000 causes to be precise.

The website offers plenty of games for the participants. Some of them are only valid inside the country while the others are multi-national games. Names like Lotto UK, EuroMillions, EuroMillions Hotpicks, Set For Life, Thunderball UK, Lotto Hotpicks, etc. have entertained the British lottery lovers for longer than anyone can imagine.

The “good causes” Camelot has raised money for include health, education, environment, charitable causes, sports, arts, and even heritage. All of these sectors have been benefiting for almost 30 years from the lottery programme.

Now, if the UK National Lottery was to be suspended, what happens to all of these projects is another dire question. Considering the current stressful situation the officials at Camelot are going through, it might just be too early to ask this question. It remains to be seen whether players will shift towards other forms of gambling in the UK like online bingo or scratchcards should the UK National Lottery be suspended.