Faced with a move to ban synthetic lotteries—where bets are placed on the outcome of out-of-jurisdiction lotteries—Lottoland Australia is offering to share its revenue with news and lottery agents.
The company said the move would “ensure wider choice for customers and additional revenue for newsagents.”
The Australian legislature is currently considering a bill to ban such lotteries in the country.
Luke Brill, CEO of Lottoland Australia, wrote an open letter to newsagents.
“As you would be aware, the Government announced last week its intention to effectively ban online betting on lotteries and keno, a move supposedly designed to protect newsagents,” the letter states. “The reality is that the proposed legislation could make life even more difficult for newsagents while reducing choice for hundreds of thousands of customers.”
The letter stressed that Lottoland does not sell bets on Australian lotteries and does not directly compete with lottery agents in the country.
“We want to partner with newsagents to provide our customers with greater choice, in a way that will be fair and profitable for your business,” Brill said. “Last year, in discussions with the associations that represent newsagents, we made an offer to share our revenue from secondary lottery betting with newsagents. “That offer not only stands but I am prepared to improve it: We will offer newsagents a 20 percent commission on the profits from every bet they refer to Lottoland.”
The letter also criticized the Tatts Group for pushing the digital sale of its lottery products, which Brill said is diverting money away from newsagents.
The Australian Lottery and Newsagents Association has come out against the offer.
“Lottoland needs the goodwill that newsagents have worked hard to achieve,” Chief Executive Adam Joy said in a press release. “We would suggest that newsagents continue this goodwill by only offering products that are highly regulated and trusted.”
