Consultation response
Consultation on society lottery reform - responses
Consultation on society lottery reform - responses - April 2020
Executive Summary - Consultation on society lottery reform - responses
Society lotteries are an important fundraising tool for good causes and local public services. We licence over 490 lotteries, which in the 12 months to March 2019 raised £332m for good causes1 . We have supported the Government’s process of reviewing the regulation of society lotteries and launched our own consultation on Society Lottery reforms in December 2019.
We have considered the responses to our consultation, which proposed changes to the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP) as follows:
- amend the limits within Licence Condition 11 to reflect changes the Government announced in July 2019
- introduce new requirements to help lottery consumers make better informed decisions about whether to gamble.
We will amend Licence Condition 11 as set out in our consultation. There is more information on this in Annex A.
This will permit:
- individual draw proceeds of up to £5 million (raised from £4 million)
- annual aggregate proceeds of up to £50 million (up from £10 million)
- a maximum individual prize of £500,000 rather than £400,000. Provided that the lottery proceeds reach the new maximum individual draw level.
As the revised annual limits will come into effect part way through the year, they will be applied on a pro-rata basis when the changes take effect. This means that societies will not have to wait until January 2021 to generate proceeds above the existing £10 million aggregate proceeds limits.
We are introducing a new social responsibility (SR) code requirement for society, local authority lottery operators and external lottery managers to provide more information to consumers. Having reviewed the responses received, we have amended the proposed code. The code now better reflects the required outcomes. That is, to provide clear, transparent and easily accessible information about the use of proceeds, about prizes and the likelihood of winning. There is more information around this in Annex A.
We have considered the responses to the proposals that form the new guidance for licensees and made some amendments to provide greater clarity to licensees of our expectations, and to emphasise that these are the minimum requirements. Whilst meeting the guidance should ensure compliance, if licensees can provide more information in advance of a consumer purchasing a ticket, they should consider doing so.
Next steps
The changes to LCCP and guidance will come into effect on 29 July 2020 and will apply to all lottery draws taking place after that date.
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Introduction - Consultation on society lottery reform - responses
Last updated: 2 November 2023
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