National Lottery operator to pay £3.15m fine

[newcustomeroffer]

The Gambling Commission has imposed a financial penalty on Camelot UK Limited for failures linked to its mobile app.

All £3.15m of the fine will be paid by the current National Lottery operator to good causes following a Commission investigation into three failures which negatively impacted consumers.

The first failure related to the National Lottery mobile app informing up to 20,000 players that their winning draw-based ticket was a non-winner when they scanned the ticket with the device’s QR scanner between November 2016 to September 2020.

The second failure involved 22,210 players who purchased a single draw-based ticket through the app being charged for and receiving two tickets. All of those players have been identified and either refunded for the duplicated wager or where duplicate wagers were winners, these were honoured as such on a duplicate basis.

The third failure related to the app sending out marketing messages to app users who had either self-excluded through Gamstop or had been identified by Camelot as showing signs of gambling harm. While marketing messages were sent out, none of the 65,400 players were subsequently permitted by the app to purchase a National Lottery product.

Full article here.

[baldidiot]

As a side note, anyone know why the lottery seems to be allowed to ignore ASA rules? You get loads of "play now" ads up at down the high street and in the windows of newsagents.

[newcustomeroffer]

As a side note, anyone know why the lottery seems to be allowed to ignore ASA rules? You get loads of "play now" ads up at down the high street and in the windows of newsagents.

Seems to be some double standards for sure, particularly given the ease of access for scratchcards. Moving from 16 to 18 last year was a step towards alignment but I'm with you, some of the messaging would get hammered if it were for a sportsbook/casino product.

[ocreditor]

As a side note, anyone know why the lottery seems to be allowed to ignore ASA rules? You get loads of "play now" ads up at down the high street and in the windows of newsagents.

Good point!

[baldidiot]

Seems to be some double standards for sure, particularly given the ease of access for scratchcards. Moving from 16 to 18 last year was a step towards alignment but I'm with you, some of the messaging would get hammered if it were for a sportsbook/casino product.

We got told off recently for saying that "winning the lottery would be life changing" in an article...

[The Buzz]

Here's an article from Sky News with a statement from Camelot:

"We accept the outcome of the Gambling Commission's investigation in respect of three unrelated historical incidents.

"We are sorry that some of our controls fell short of the mark in certain very specific circumstances and have paid the fine.

"We always strive to operate the National Lottery to the highest possible standards and, given its scale and complexity, we're proud of our track record of running the National Lottery with extremely high levels of integrity."

https://news.sky.com/story/camelot-f...rrors-12572657

[Hrusczevich Vitalian]

I've never played the lottery, I don't even know if I'd like to try. There is no particular excitement. Lottery for me is something old school.

[MattLoG]

3.5M fine is nothing comparing to loosing the UK national lottery licence.