Lotto watchdog grabs £155m from charities
THE Gambling Commission has pocketed £155million from National Lottery ticket sales that was meant for good causes, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
In a raid that critics have branded appalling, the gambling regulator awarded itself the funds to cover administration costs – £50million more than budgeted and money which should have been used to support cash-starved charities and community groups.
Andrew Rhodes, the commission’s chief executive, has admitted it has taken £154.8 million that will be used to regulate the lottery for the next ten years, as well as paying for the recent bidding process which will see a Czech billionaire take over the contract from Camelot.
Last night Sir Iain Duncan Smith, vice-chairman of the AllParty Parliamentary Group for Gambling-Related Harm, blasted the cash grab. He said: ‘This is another example of the appalling way the lottery is run. The proportion of funds going to good causes has plummeted.’
In a letter to Dame Meg Hillier, who chairs the Commons Public Accounts Committee, Mr Rhodes reveals the costs to license and regulate the lottery spiralled to £154.8million – more than £50million
above the initial budget of £102.9million. He said that the vast sum was being drawn down from the charity funds raised by National Lottery players, but insisted it accounted for just 0.7 per cent of the more than £14.5billion saved for good causes.
Last month it was revealed that Europe’s largest lottery operator, Allwyn, had been awarded the UK’s fourth ten-year National Lottery contract starting next year, after beating Camelot, which has run it since the jackpot draws began 30 years ago.
Allwyn is owned by Karel Komarek, a Czech billionaire who has promised to breathe fresh life into the lottery with a plan to slash ticket prices from £2 to £1 until its licence runs out in 2034.
But the award has attracted criticism
‘The funds going to good causes have plummeted’
over Mr Komarek’s ties with the Russian state energy giant Gazprom.
Mr Komarek’s company Moravske Naftove Doly (MND) formed a joint venture in 2016 with Gazprom to build an underground gas storage facility in Moravia in the Czech Republic.
For several years, MND held a stake in a Czech gas importer that is majority-owned by Gazprom subsidiaries.
The Gambling Commission said it was ‘satisfied that no application [was] impacted by sanctions related to the conflict in Ukraine’.
The Gambling Commission said last night: ‘We have made every effort to keep costs low while ensuring that we fulfil our statutory duties and deliver the best possible outcome for the National Lottery.’
It added that £154.8million ‘represents a reasonable investment’ against the £80billion the ten-year contract was expected to generate in ticket sales.