Unclaimed Lotto Raffle prizes
Request
Please could you tell me how many £20,000 Lotto Raffle prizes went unclaimed between April 2014 and April 2015?
Response
Thank you for your request which has been processed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
In your email you requested how many £20,000 Lotto Raffle prizes went unclaimed between April 2014 and April 2015.
As unclaimed prizes are not registered as unclaimed until 180 days after the prize is ‘won’, we have reviewed the data from all Lotto draws held between 05/10/2013 and 01/11/2014 inclusive in order to respond to your request.
During this period, a total of 1,219 £20,000 Lotto Raffle prizes went unclaimed.
However, this is in the context of a very high number of £20,000 Lotto Raffle prizes (up to 1,000 in particular draws) being offered during the same period.
Review of the decision
If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your Freedom of Information request you are entitled to an internal review of our decision. You should write to FOI Team, Gambling Commission, 4th floor, Victoria Square House, Victoria Square, Birmingham, B2 4BP or by reply to this email.
Please note, internal review requests should be made within 40 working days of the initial response. Requests made outside this timeframe will not be processed.
If you are not content with the outcome of our review, you may then apply directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have already exhausted the review procedure provided by the Gambling Commission.
The ICO can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office (opens in a new tab), Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Information Management Team
Gambling Commission
Victoria Square House
Victoria Square
Birmingham B2 4BP
Internal Review Request
Thank you very much for your reply. which was late I might add. Unfortunately, the information you have provided is not what I asked for.
I specifically asked for the number of unclaimed £20,000 Lotto Raffle prizes between April 2014 and April 2015.
You have provided the number of unclaimed £20,000 Lotto Raffle prizes between 5th October, 2013 and 1st November, 2014 knowing full-well that unclaimed prizes cannot be registered as such until 180 days have expired since the prize was drawn.
This suggests that 1,219 unclaimed £20,000 Lotto Raffle prizes went unclaimed in just 6 months.
In this particular case you should've provided all unclaimed £20,000 Lotto Raffle prizes between 3rd April 2014 - 3rd April, 2015.
Not only have you deliberately attempted to fluff the numbers, you have also attempted to justify the high number of 1,219 unclaimed £20,000 Lotto Raffle prizes by stating 'however, this is in the context of a very high number of £20,000 Lotto Raffle prizes (up to 1,000 in particular draws) being offered during the same period.'
It is not the Gambling Commission's job to try and justify these numbers.
Please provide the information I have asked for, unclaimed £20,000 Lotto Raffle prizes between 3rd April 2014 and 3rd April 2015. Please could you also put them into a spreadsheet to include dates.
Internal Review Response
I am writing to you further to your Freedom of Information request dated 10/10/2023 which we responded to on 10/11/2023, and your subsequent request for an internal review received on 10/11/2023.
We have now concluded our review and our findings are detailed below.
This internal review was conducted by someone who was not involved in the processing of your original request.
In your initial email you requested how many £20,000 Lotto Raffle prizes went unclaimed between April 2014 and April 2015.
In response to your request, we explained that as unclaimed prizes are not registered as unclaimed until 180 days after the prize is ‘won’, we have reviewed the data from all Lotto draws held between 05/10/2013 and 01/11/2014 inclusive to respond to your request.
Based on this period of calculation, we advised that, during this period, a total of 1,219 £20,000 Lotto Raffle prizes went unclaimed.
Internal review
After reviewing your request and our initial response I can confirm that the information which was provided was done so under the following rationale:
Your request was interpreted as being for how many £20,000 Lotto Raffle prizes were registered as unclaimed during the period April 2014 and April 2015.
We therefore provided data from draws between 05/10/2013 and 01/11/2014 (180 days before the respective dates in the request. This date range would have captured Raffle prizes which were registered as unclaimed during the period April 2014 and April 2015.
As such, I uphold the decision that all information held by the Gambling Commission falling within the scope of your request was provided in the first instance.
However, if the request is for all unclaimed prizes related to draws which took place between April 2014 and April 2015 then we will be happy to fulfil that as a new request under the FOIA.
Should you wish this to be processed as an additional request under the FOIA, please advise as such. This request will represent a new request for information and the new 20 working day time limit will commence from the day after your request is received.
If you are not content with the outcome of your review, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints procedure provided by the Gambling Commission. The ICO can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Yours sincerely,
Information Management Team
Gambling Commission