Regulating with Excellence

The first fourteen years of the National Lottery have been a great success with £24 billion raised for good causes, but there is no room for complacency. We want to make sure that this success continues.

The presence of an independent regulator, together with a carefully tailored regulatory regime, has been critical in ensuring the Lottery is operated fairly and can be trusted by players and the public.

The duty of the Commission to ensure that returns to good causes are as great as possible, means we also look beyond a narrow regulatory remit. This ‘investor’ role gives us responsibilities which are different from general regulatory activities and is a central feature of the National Lottery regime.

As a result of the competitive pressure exerted during the licence competition and the way we have designed the third Lottery licence, we estimate that good causes could benefit by an additional £600 million – £1 billion over the ten year licence if sales remain at current levels. But the National Lottery cannot be taken for granted.

We must continue to protect the nation’s investment in the Lottery by having the scope to challenge any underperformance by the operator and focusing our regulatory action to maximise good causes whilst keeping the National Lottery fair, fun and safe to play.

Our Principles of Regulating with Excellence paper sets out how we will refine our regulatory approach as we enter the next licence period. We will apply better regulation principles to enable Camelot to use its commercial expertise whilst we develop the means to oversee the nation’s investment in the National Lottery even more effectively, to ensure that good causes get the best deal and the games remain fair and safe.

The Principles of Regulating with Excellence paper is available to download from this page.

Related downloads

• The Principles of Regulating with Excellence, January 2009

  The Commission strives for excellence and constantly looks at ways in which its regulatory model can be improved. This paper sets out how we will refine our regulatory approach as we enter the third licence period.

  (pdf - 934kb)

• A review of the National Lottery Commission's Approach to Regulation

  This paper is a review of our regulatory model undertaken in April 2006.

  (pdf - 176kb)