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  3. Fourth National Lottery Licence: Regulatory Handbook

Policy

Fourth National Lottery Licence: Regulatory Handbook

The Commission’s regulatory handbook sets out our regulatory approach to the National Lottery.

Published
1 February 2024

Last updated
1 February 2024 - Changes

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  1. Contents
  2. Volume four: Enforcement Policy  
  3. 26. Our general enforcement principles

26. Our general enforcement principles

26.1 The general principles we apply in our enforcement decisions are shown below and flow from our Public Law Duties. These are consistent with our more outcomes-focused regulatory approach, wider gambling regulation, and regulatory best practice. Our general principles and enforcement policy apply to the Fourth Licence granted under Section 5 of the Act, and to licences issued to promote lotteries under Section 6 of the Act.

These principles are as follows:

Proportionality

We only intervene where necessary with targeted enforcement actions appropriate to secure our statutory objectives are met. Our approach is targeted and focused on the most important operational issues, factors and risks.

Consistency

We will treat similar cases in a similar way unless we have a good reason not to. However, where there are repeated failures by the Licensee, we reserve our right to escalate enforcement action.

Evidence-based decision making

We will seek and make use of the best available evidence when making enforcement decisions. We will adopt a risk-based and proportionate approach to evidence gathering such that we may adopt more streamlined approaches to evidence gathering where more straightforward matters are assessed.

Accountability and transparency

We will explain to our key stakeholders how we make our enforcement decisions and the actions we take. Our key stakeholders include the Licensee, Participants, potential Participants (the general public), Retailers, Distributors, the NLPU, DCMS, Parliament, consumer groups and any other interested parties.

We will be clear and open about our enforcement decisions. This will help to ensure our stakeholders understand our regulatory concerns and how we seek to address these with our regulatory and enforcement actions.

Human rights compliant

We will comply with our obligations under the Human Rights Act 1998 as a public authority.

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27. What will trigger an investigation
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