Lotto boss’s unsung Olympic heroes
Lottery chief says don’t forget the punters who paid for it all
NATIONAL Lottery boss Andy Duncan believes his customers are Britain’s unsung Olympic heroes with players raising millions to fund Team GB in Rio – but he is not sure they’re getting the credit they deserve.
After all, it wasn’t always so: 20 years ago at Atlanta, Team GB won just one gold medal and 15 in total, a performance putting it below Team Belgium and even Team Ethiopia.
But in 1997, lottery funding began and by Athens in 2004 this had doubled to 30. At London in 2012 it reached 65 including 29 golds, and now at Rio it has far exceeded even the British Olympic Association’s expectations.
‘The National Lottery has been a very, very big factor in that success, if not the key factor, and I am very keen that the National Lottery players get thanked for their part in it,’ says 54-year-old Duncan, who is the chief executive of National Lottery operator Camelot, owned by Canada’s Ontario Teachers’ pension fund.
Certainly, the sums provided by the lottery are Olympian in scale: it has invested £80million a year in supporting 1,300 elite athletes competing in the Olympics in Rio and the Paralympics which begin there on September 7. To date, more than 4,500 elite athletes have benefited from lottery funding.
But the money, provided through UK Sport which supplies additional funds, is ruthlessly allocated to sports likely to win medals. Those that aren’t – like basketball – risk withering, say critics.
‘It is means-tested, so those athletes like Jessica Ennis-Hill and Mo Farah who have a lot of commercial sponsorship are not paid directly by the lottery like the others, but they still benefit from training facilities, nutritionists, coaches and so on. Even Andy Murray began his tennis career on lotteryfunded courts,’ says Duncan.
‘Some of the athletes have been great when it comes to thanking the National Lottery and that’s brilliant because it completes the circle, and it has certainly started to filter into the public consciousness that the lottery has played such an important role. But I still think there is more work to be done to get that message across.’
As the former boss of Channel 4 and previously a marketing expert with Unilever, Duncan knows all about getting his message heard and in innovative ways, too: he can also claim credit for launching Freeview during his time at the BBC.
Duncan’s way of reminding the public just who paid for our sporting success will be evident this Saturday when, in conjunction with the broadcaster ITV, the National Lottery will be running its ‘I am Team GB’ event to encourage as many people as possible to play sport. This is also about tackling one of the big disappointments of the London Olympics – all that money raised by the lottery failed to lead to a big boost in numbers playing sport.
ITV will cease broadcasting for one hour for the first time in three decades, switch off all seven of its channels, leaving the message on screen: ‘We’ve gone running – why don’t you join us?’. Coronation Street’s set will host activities including badminton and table ten- nis and the Emmerdale set will host a duathlon. ‘The idea is that anybody who has bought a lottery ticket is part of Team GB. ‘ We ’ r e going to have a number of our returning Olympians present at various venues, too, and there will be extra prizes on offer from Lotto: an extra £50,000 for every bronze medal Team GB won; an extra £100,000 for every silver; and an extra £1million for every gold,’ he says. Neither he nor Camelot choose where the money it raises goes, of course – that is decided by various organisations appointed by Parliament. Former Prime Minister Sir John Major thought sport was one of the ‘good causes’ which should benefit and £5billion has flowed into grassroots sports since the lottery’s launch back in 1994. Under Duncan, who controversially doubled the ticket price to £2 in 2013, sales hit a record £7.6billion in the year to the end of March. Camelot takes 1per cent of revenues as profits meaning it made about £75million this year.
‘The London Olympics were brilliant in connecting with the public but a key part of London was to encourage participation in sport and that turned out to be a little disappointing. So, this time round, the “I am Team GB” campaign aims to change that. We want this Saturday to be the biggest sports day ever,’ he says.
Duncan says Team GB’s Olympic success does have a direct effect on how lottery players view the National Lottery.
‘Fundamentally, people play the lottery to win – we create six or seven millionaires and give away £50-£60million a week. But the success of Team GB means players take a positive view of the National Lottery brand and that is undoubtedly good for our long-term health. We’re actually one of the biggest digital and mobile businesses in the UK with more than £1.5billion in sales online,’ he says.
The National Lottery was set up by an Act of Parliament in 1993 and has been run by Camelot ever since but it no longer has the field to itself. It has to compete with interlopers like the Health Lottery, run by OK! magazine owner Richard Desmond, and People’s Postcode Lottery, run by Novamedia of the Netherlands.
‘I think they are unquestionably cannibalising National Lottery sales and confusing the public. We are not against society lotteries that raise money for good causes locally, but we are not supportive of these big national companies which are direct competitors: they do give to good causes but they spend up to 30 per cent of sales on marketing and they pay themselves quite a lot of money.
‘There are some policy changes required from the Government to ensure they do not damage the
A key part of the London Games was to encourage sport ...that was a bit of a disappointment
Other lotteries are cannibalising our sales – and they are confusing for the public
health of the National Lottery,’ he says. The Health Lottery donates 20 per cent of sales to good causes, compared with 28 per cent from National Lottery. People’s Postcode Lottery has said 27.5 per cent of ticket sales go to charities.
He insists the National Lottery does benefit society, having little truck with the notion that it is just another gambling outfit or a tax on the poor.
‘We are in a different space to the bookies and casinos. People do not spend more than they can afford on the lottery, it is a discretionary spend, a little flutter.
‘It is for all ages, all demographics – about 80 per cent of the British public over 16 years of age played the lottery last year, 70 per cent regularly. We’re a unifying force, too, we spend in all boroughs and people know that,’ he says.
Perhaps, but as our lottery-funded athletes have proved, it is certainly a force for Olympic medals.