Lottery Licence
Lotteries are a good way of raising funds for
charitable purposes and include draws and raffles. In general
terms, any distribution of prizes where the participants provide
money to obtain the chance to win a prize, where no degree of skill
or judgement has to be demonstrated, is a lottery.
Lotteries conducted for private gain, however
are illegal.
Much of the law relating to Society Lotteries
comes from Gambling Act 2005.
The Gambling Commission have produced a useful
leaflet
which you may find helpful.
The only types of lottery that are legal
are:
- Society Lotteries
- Small Lotteries
- Exempt Lotteries
- The National Lottery
Details of each of these, except for the
National Lottery are available below.
The only types of lotteries that must be
registered with the Local Authority are Society Lotteries and after
each draw a return must be made to the Local Authority detailing
expenses and the amounts given out in prizes.
Society Lotteries
Lotteries conducted in order to raise money
for charitable, sporting or similar purposes must be registered
with the Local Authority. This is done in order to ensure that
the public are not duped by unscrupulous people holding raffles for
their own personal gain under the pretence of it being for
charitable purposes (Generally speaking if the intention is only to
sell cloakroom tickets for a lottery at the actual event and not
before or outside then you may not need to register. Please see the
section on Small Lotteries for further information).
The Society on whose behalf the lottery is
being conducted must itself be registered with us. The lottery
itself must be conducted in a manner complying with the
Gambling Act 2005, the requirements of the Local Authority and in
accordance with the Society’s own Scheme. A copy of the
Scheme must be lodged with the Local Authority in advance of
any lottery being conducted.
The Council may register a society, which is
established for one of the following purposes:
- Charitable purposes
- The purpose of enabling participation in, or of supporting,
sport athletics or a cultural activity or
- Any other non-commercial purpose other than that of private
gain.
If ticket sales are likely to
exceed £20000 in value for any one lottery or more
than £250000 per calendar year, the Lottery must be licensed
by the Gambling Commission and not the Local Authority.
Tickets
Lotteries may involve the issuing of physical
or virtual tickets to participants (example of a virtual ticket
would be in the form of an email or text). Under the Gambling
Act 2005 all tickets must be printed with certain information.
They should:
(1) identify the
promoting society
(2) clearly state the
price of the ticket
(3) contain the name
and address of the member of the society who has been designated as
being responsible for the promotion of the lottery (and also, if
applicable, the name of the external lottery manager) and
either
(4) state the date of
the draw(s) in the lottery or
(5) enable the date of
the draw(s) in the lottery to be determined.
The requirement to provide this information
may be satisfied by providing the opportunity for the participant
to retain the information electronically or to print it.
Lottery tickets may only be sold by persons
over the age of 16 and to persons over the age of 16.
Tickets should not be sold in a street but may
be sold from a kiosk, in a shop or door to door.
Further Information
How to register your
society
Exempt Lotteries
(raffles) and private lotteries
For further information please contact the Licensing Section .
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