5. Regulating a successful National Lottery
The National Lottery has become a fixture of British life since its first draw in 1994 and is one of the most recognised brands in the country. Through the returns it generates, it changes lives, both for the individuals who win prizes, and for the good causes who receive the funds that the National Lottery raises.
For the first time in the history of the National Lottery there has been a change in the licensee. There is also a new regulatory framework, an outcomes-focused approach enabling greater opportunities and incentivising more investment to keep the National Lottery relevant, future-proof and enduring for the benefit of the whole of the UK.
Our priority, in accordance with our core regulatory outcomes, is to uphold the National Lottery duties, which are propriety, protecting participant interests, and subject to both those duties, ensuring the maximisation of returns to good causes.
A successful Fourth National Lottery licence is paramount to achieving these outcomes, as is evaluating and learning from the licence competition to inform future competitions.
Key Commitments
We will complete our oversight and assurance of the transition to, and implementation of, the Fourth National Lottery licence.
Why? We will hold the licensee to account and ensure the integrity of the competition outcome. This will enable us to make evidenced and risk-based decisions relating to the licensee’s performance and inform our approach to regulation under the new outcomes-focused licence framework.
As a result, our dedicated Fourth National Lottery licence programme will provide robust oversight, engagement and assurance of the licensee’s delivery of their application during the implementation period. We will also maintain a governance framework to ensure agile and effective management of the programme.
Consumers and the wider public will benefit from the improvements to the National Lottery possible through the delivery of the application commitments and outcomes.
We will measure our progress through a combination of activities including managing risks and issues, monitoring delivery of the application commitments and outcomes, and defining key milestones to ensure consistency and quality of submissions are maintained to support positive outcomes.
We will embed our regulatory approach to the Fourth National Lottery licence.
Why? This will help us to realise the strategic objectives of the Fourth National Lottery Competition regarding high standards of propriety, a strong focus on participant protection, maximising good causes contribution and growing the value of the National Lottery as an asset. It will also help us to capitalise on the benefits of moving to a new outcome based regulatory framework.
As a result, the licensee will have more freedom to innovate and use its commercial judgement but also greater responsibility and accountability for its performance and delivery against outcomes. We will be able to hold the operator to account, via the regulatory framework, ensuring its performance during the licence period is better aligned with the strategic objectives.
Consumers will benefit from the innovation opportunities that the new licence offers the licensee, whilst player protection is maintained and improved. The wider public should benefit from increased returns to good causes across the licence period.
We will measure our progress through a number of activities, including understanding the operator’s approach for putting the assurance model set out in the licence into operation. We will also assess the licensee’s performance against each of the duties to ensure that performance does not diminish under the operation of the new licensee.
We will assess how well the benefits from the new licence arrangements are realised.
Why? The award of the National Lottery licence is a significant, high-profile decision taken by the Gambling Commission. We therefore need to be able to understand and demonstrate whether the impact of that decision is in line with our expectations.
As a result, we will be able to provide the public with confidence in the competition process and outcome, while demonstrating that each of our statutory duties are being delivered to the level that was anticipated through the licence award.
Consumers and the wider public will benefit by having confidence in the competition outcome, knowledge that the National Lottery continues to be run safely and with all due propriety, and that returns to good causes are being maximised.
We will measure our progress through a range of qualitative (for example, the proportion of the licensee’s bid which has been implemented) and quantitative (for example, levels of returns to good causes) measures which will be determined during the early part of the Fourth National Lottery licence period.
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Cross-cutting enablers
Last updated: 8 April 2024
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