Response to Gambling Commission Review of Research, Education and Treatment

From its inception, the National Lottery has been regarded as separate from the remainder of the gambling industry. As a consequence, it has been largely separated from the workings of the Gambling Act 2005. This separation is based on three distinct and distinguishing characteristics of the National Lottery.

First, the legislation which underlies the National Lottery states that the NLC of the National Lottery must ensure that the National Lottery is run with all due propriety and that the interests of participants in the National Lottery are protected. Subject to these conditions being satisfied then it must endeavour to make the net proceeds for good causes as great as possible. The pre-eminence of social goals in this hierarchy of motives makes the National Lottery different from other, for-profit gambling operations.

Second, the NLC has developed, over the past 13 years, a comprehensive system of oversight and regulation of the National Lottery to ensure that these purposes are served. This very comprehensiveness sets it apart from other regulators of gambling like the Gambling Commission (GC), which regulates most of the British gambling industry, and the Financial Services Agency (FSA), which regulates spread betting. In particular, it performs a number of functions which relate to gambling prevention and education and gambling research including the following:

Active regulation of game infrastructure through approval of codes, game rules, etc.;Setting and enforcing standards of information provision to players;
Requiring the operator to address risks of under-age or excessive play when applying for game licences;In the cases where games pose relatively high risks to players, requiring the operator to undertake post-launch research to assess risk and where necessary to modify or withdraw the game;Obliging the operator to undertake preventative measures. These may be specific to a game or channel such as those which attend Interactive Instant Win Games (IIWGs) or to a class of player like the young people covered by Operation Child; andResearch to inform judgements of Commissioners.p. Many of these functions require an active commitment and financial contribution from the operator which also provides additional contributions to safe National Lottery play via research, retailer education and product screening. Taken in the most general of senses, the NLC does perform some of the same prevention, education and research functions as the GC or the FSA. However, it does so in pursuit of quite different aims and its efforts in these areas are not necessarily consistent with similar efforts of other organisations.

Third, successive British Gambling Prevalence Surveys1 have found that the products sold through the National Lottery hold a relatively low risk of harm to players despite wide availability throughout the UK. The NLC suggests that the current low levels of harm associated with National Lottery play are indicative of the success of its regulatory regime. However, it cannot be taken for granted that this result will remain true for ever as new types of game are offered on a variety of new channels. Indeed, the fact that 52% of UK adults play the National Lottery at least once every three months and 33% play at least weekly means that even a small increase in risk could have very widespread social consequences. Hence, the NLC believes that there is need for constant vigilance to prevent risks to players of the National Lottery from increasing in the future.

The full response is available to download on this page.

Related downloads

• Response to Gambling Commission Review of Research, Education and Treatment

  National Lottery Commission response to the Gambling Commission’s review of the current arrangements for the provision of research, education and treatment into problem gambling.

  (pdf - 118kb)