Recently, an important publication of the Department for Digital Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) came out. It stated that it favours the prohibition of betting on EuroMillions draws that are organized outside of the United Kingdom. The decision of the DCMS will lead to a new license that forbids operators to take these kind of bets. By doing so, it deals with some legal loopholes.
A legal loophole in the Gambling Act 2005
The decision of the DCMS obviously has implications for bet-on lottery operators. However, it doesn’t mean that they’re not allowed to offer bets on international lotteries. They can still do this, but offering bets on EuroMillions to UK punters is prohibited from now on. To understand the exact situation, you should read Section 95 of the Gambling Act 2005. It states that betting on any lottery which forms part of the National Lottery is prohibited. This also relates to the lotteries that are promoted by the Camelot organization. It has the legal rights to organize the National Lottery, which also includes the UK EuroMillions draw. However, in the last couple of years EuroMillions had a structure that made it possible to place a bet anyway. The standard rule is that only UK bets are accepted. Camelot only promoted the UK EuroMillions draw and because of that several operators were able to avoid the restriction of the Gambling Act. What’s more, they only accepted bets on
Confusion among customers
The EuroMillions lottery is organized all over Europe. You can participate in Germany France, Belgium and many other countries. Each EuroMillions lottery their own structure and rules. This doesn’t cause confusion among customers. However, the fact that EuroMillions products were offered by bet-on-lottery providers did. Over the years the line between betting on lotteries and lotteries blurred too much. A research from Camelot has shown that only 14 percent of the customers could show that their EuroMillions tickets was a bet in a foreign country instead of the United Kingdom. More than 60 percent of the customers thought that they were betting in the United Kingdom! Another disadvantage of the bet-on-lottery providers is that they keep the money to themselves. Normally a part of the money of a UK EuroMillions bet is contributed to charities.
The impact of the DCMS decision for the Eurmillions
According to the DCMS there is fear that the betting on EuroMillions expands . If more operators are doing it it might led to a decrease of the National Lottery good cause returns. Eventually these concerns have lead to a prohibition on betting of non-UK EuroMillions draws. The decision of the DCMS is obviously a huge blow to the bet-on lottery operators. It affects their UK business significantly. The CRO from Lottoland states that he might seek legal action. He doesn’t see the impact of bets that are accepted on the EuroMillions to the National Lottery as negative. What’s more, the might even be a positive correlation between the two. The CEO also labels the impact of the bets that are accepted as ‘statistically indistinguishable from zero’.
