A submission made by Depaul UK to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) on Society Lotteries.
Depaul UK holds a society lottery license and through this generates funding to help young people affected by homelessness.
A response was offered to the DCMS consultation. In summary, recommendations made were:
- Depaul UK urges the Government to keep the consideration period to a minimum and to work towards implementing new legislation as soon as possible. Without legislative change the funding we receive from our society lottery may decrease in 2019.
- The individual per draw sales limit should be increased to £10 million. This would prevent us from having to cap draw sizes, and therefore the funding we receive, for the foreseeable future.
- The individual per draw maximum prize limit should be increased to £500,000. Increasing the maximum prize limit would help our society lottery to attract new players, while at the same time retaining society lotteries’ differentiation from the National Lottery.
- The annual sales limit should be increased to £100 million. The current £10 million limit means that the charitable income produced by society lotteries cannot increase as it would do without such a low limit being in place. We are also concerned that the interaction between the increasing player base for our lottery and the current annual draw limit will mean we have to reduce the number of draws and therefore funding for our services.
- We do not believe that changes we suggest in this submission will have a negative effect on the funding for good causes provided by the National Lottery. This view is supported by evidence from the Gambling Commission.
Read the full submission to consultation on Society Lotteries here.
