UK - Camelot faces accusations of luring children into gambling by selling scratchcards based on games such as Monopoly and Connect 4. The cards, offering instant jackpots of up to £1million, are often placed in shops at the point where impulse buys such as chewing gum, chocolate bars and children’s sweets are on sale. Daily Mail.

UK – Sales of national lottery instant-play games — mostly controversial scratchcards — now account for a quarter of all Camelot’s revenue.  The lottery operator published half-year figures showing total sales of £3.26bn for the six months to 24 September, up 19.9% despite the intense pressure on consumer spending elsewhere on the high street. The [...]

UK -  The National Council for Voluntary Organisations has suggested that the minimum proportion of lottery proceeds that go to good causes should be increased from 20 per cent to 28 per cent. Sir Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the NCVO, wrote to Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, about [...]

UK - Charity leaders are urging supermarkets to stop selling tickets for the controversial Health Lottery amid claims that stores are deliberately promoting the new game at the expense of the National Lottery. Acevo, the association of chief executives of voluntary organisations, has written to supermarkets asking them to ‘do the right thing’ and drop the [...]

UK - Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, says Gambling Commission is looking at legality of controversial Channel 5 lottery Hunt told the Commons culture, media and sport select committee on Thursday that the Gambling Commission was looking at whether the Health Lottery is diverting money from smaller society lotteries and good causes. The  commercial lottery says [...]