A multi-party group of U.K. parliament members are criticizing Camelot, the country’s longstanding lottery operator, for app-based games they say put vulnerable players at risk. MPs from both the Conservative and Labor parties also say the app-based games limit funds that are directed to charity.
Camelot’s recent results showed that two-thirds of sales growth in the last two years came on instant-win games, mostly online, a process driven by pandemic lockdowns. Mobile sales rocketed from £1.606 billion in 2020 to £2.482 billion in 2021.
This comes as Camelot, a Canadian company, is bidding to retain the lottery license it’s held since 1994. Its competitors include the Czech-owned Sazka Group, former Daily Express owner Richard Desmond; and the Italian company Sisal.
The government has previously worried that the move to internet games could increase problem gaming. To fight the problem, it increased the minimum age for participation from 16 to 18.
The MPs also criticize the fact that 9 percent of instant-winner games and online games go to charity, compared to 31 percent of draw-based games. The percentages that go to community causes has declined from 28 percent nine years ago to 21 percent this year.
Critic MP Alexander Stafford, criticizing Camelot’s business model, commented, “People trust the national lottery as a brand and want to get behind its charitable mission statement. But these controversial instant-win games are herding people towards a more dangerous form of gambling, putting vulnerable people at risk.”
Another critic, MP Carolyn Harris, who chairs an all-party group concerned with gaming-related harms, also called for intervention. “This beggars belief, particularly in a year when many people have struggled and charities are crying out for funding,” she said. “That so little money from the lottery is going to charity is sickening, and the government must see to it that this cannot happen again.”
A lottery spokesman noted that the app-based games are six years old and that increased sales include other trends. The spokesman acknowledged that app-based gaming had increased as a result of Covid lockdowns and restrictions, but said it’s all been achieved “in a responsible way.”
“By giving people a choice of safe and enjoyable games that they want to play, by making those games attractive and generous to players, and by enabling people to play in ways that suit them best, we’re generating record monetary returns to good causes from ticket sales, record prize money to players and record payments in lottery duty to the treasury.”
