Which Company Runs The UK Lottery?
July 27th, 2010
The UK lottery is presently run by Camelot Group plc. In a period of eight years, bidding is done to see which company is capable of operating the national lottery. This progression is managed by an organization known as National Lottery Commission, which is not a British government related company. It also ensures the lottery players are treated in a just way.
Camelot came into being in 1993. It had several shareholders such as Thales Electronics plc, Cadbury Schweppes, Fujitsu Services Ltd., De La Rue Holdings plc, and Royal Mail Enterprises Ltd. GTECH was one of the shareholders, however it was later bought-out after an issue which that affected the bid. Their executives such as Tim Holley were held in charge of Camelot unfairly getting large bonuses. When the case was taken to Labor government, and it found out about the loopholes and the way the executives in Camelot were making money, it became a very big embarrassment for Camelot.
Camelot decided to run in the bidding for the national lottery in 2001. There competitor, The People’s Lottery, was fairly convinced that they would win the bid after the indecent with GTECH. It was found that lottery terminals made by GTECH had a technical problem that made them give out the wrong amounts of winnings. GTECH sold their shares and Camelot continued the race to win the bid.
In a turn of events the National Lottery Commission chair, Dame Helena, told the companies that they both did not meet the requirements to run the lottery. Even so, the National Lottery Commission still tried to give the company to The People’s Lottery. Seeing the injustice of this, Camelot took the National Lottery Commission to court. The High Court awarded the case to Camelot saying that the Commission’s decision was conspicuously unfair. The National Lottery Commission fired their Treasury team that had made the decision.
Later on the bidding reopened and Camelot won 4-1. The shareholders remain the same today except for the bought-out GTECH. It is now running the largest lottery franchise in the UK and raising money for various causes. Their biggest lottery game is known as the Lotto, and almost all of their games are done through scratch cards and pick the number games.
The money raised by the UK lottery is divided into several different categories. Most of the money for every pound spent goes to the prize money (50p) or various good causes (28p). 12p goes to the British government and 5p goes to the people who well the lottery tickets and such. Camelot takes in 5p per pound, using 4.5 of it to cover their costs and saving 0.5 for their own profit.
Camelot has been operating the UK lottery well and it has been going successful. When the lottery sales went down, they started offering lower costs. At this time, several lottery games were modified to Lotto, and since them more people started taking part. It recently ran a promotion, in which one of the lottery games does fund raising for the Olympics and the Paralympics of 2012.