Bubb condemns Richard Desmond's 'disgraceful' Health Lottery

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Bubb condemns Richard Desmond's 'disgraceful' Health Lottery8

Fundraising | Tania Mason | 27 Sep 2011

Acevo chief executive Sir Stephen Bubb has branded Richard Desmond’s new Health Lottery “a disgrace”, claiming it is likely to cannibalise National Lottery sales and mean less money for good causes.

“I don’t think Mr Desmond suddenly woke up one day and thought ‘how can I help health charities’,” Bubb told civilsociety.co.uk. “He intends this lottery to be a profit-making scheme and he is competing directly with the National Lottery because he is going to be selling his tickets in more retail outlets than the National Lottery.

“And he is only giving 20p per pound to health charities whereas the National Lottery gives 28p in the pound to good causes, so if he does compete and it reduces the amount going to the National Lottery then charities will suffer.”

£100k top prize

The Health Lottery, which launches on Thursday, is operated by Richard Desmond’s Northern & Shell media company and offers a £100,000 top prize for matching five numbers. Four matching numbers will win players £500, while three will collect £50.

The draw will be shown in adverts on Saturday evenings on ITV and the Northern & Shell-owned Channel Five.

The operators have said they hope to raise £50m a year for health causes.

More than 40,000 retailers have signed up to sell tickets, while around 28,000 sell the National Lottery. A £20m marketing campaign will promote the launch.

Bubb dismissed as “spin” the idea that the voluntary sector does not benefit from the whole 28p that the National Lottery allocates to good causes from each pound. “The 28p is given to heritage, arts and sports organisations and nearly every single one of those is a charity,” he said. He went on to say that the money that has been diverted for the Olympics is a one-off situation and the Olympics will be over next year.

Duplicating admin costs

Bubb also criticised Desmond for setting up a whole new administrative structure to give the money away “when the Big Lottery Fund already does it very efficiently and effectively”.

“BIG gave away £1.3bn last year and £270m of that went to health charities. If National Lottery sales drop as a result of this new lottery then that is worrying.

“If he is doing it on the back of this emotional pull of supporting health charities then I absolutely think he has to match the National Lottery, otherwise we are going to lose out as a sector.”

Health Lottery chief executive Martin Hall defended the disbursement ratio, stating: “If we’re giving more in prizes, there is less to give away.”

Directory: Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO) | Big Lottery Fund | Health Lottery
Who's Who: Sir Stephen Bubb

Place a comment

Zorro
12 Oct 2011

odds of getting all 5 numbers right is 1 in approx 2.1 million.
So for every 2.1 million tickeets sold (£2.1 Million)there will be:
1 prize of £100,000 (£100,000)
odds of getting 4 numbers is 1 in 9,416, so for every 2.1 million tickets sold there will be 2,100,000/9,416 = 223 prizes of £500 (£111,500)
odds o getting 3 numbers is 1 in 214, so for every 2.1 million tickets sold there will be 2,100,000/214 = 9813 prizes of £50 (£459,150).
So total prize payout per 2.1 million tickets equates to £100,00 + £111,500 +£459,150 = £670,650 or in other words some 32% of takings considerably less than the payout from Camelot.

Also I have read that as a society lottery they are not liable to the 12% duty as paid by Camelot.
So 32% in prizes, 20% to charities I have read that there is a 5% commission to retailers, that makes 57%. 43% running costs??

[Reply]

Daniel
Quality control
BMW
11 Oct 2011

I don't really understand why are you accusing health lottery. I think they are doing pretty well, they are launching a lot of new features so that it would be easier for us to follow them,***link removed as promotional material*** looks good from my perspective :/

[Reply]

W Forsyth
engineer
joe public etc
2 Oct 2011

Bet this Tuesday's Euromillions and Wednesday's Lotto are both roll-overs just to take attention off this brilliant and fair health lottery.

[Reply]

Gill Mills
private
30 Sep 2011

Sounds to me like good healthy competition and giving to health charities in favour of arts charities gets my vote every time.

[Reply]

Stolen
27 Sep 2011

Between nudge, stick and carrot ... this new entrant to the competition has a good chance of being effective both for lottery players and charities.

Works like this ... more chances of winning bigger prizes means that more players are attracted leading to a bigger quantum of funds to be be given to charity.

[Reply]

Sir Robin Bogg
CEO
BUBB
27 Sep 2011

Sorry, me again. "Stolen" has a point. This is disgraceful. Competition should not be allowed in relation to health issues. Except if it is recommended in MY report about competition in the NHS. Then it is not a dirty word.

[Reply]

Sir Robin Bogg
CEO
BUBB
27 Sep 2011

Sir Stephen is correct. The only health lottery that should be allowed is one where the government invites notable Knights to independently come to the right conclusions about aspects of the NHS' future as some sort of window dressing listening exercise.

[Reply]

Stolen
27 Sep 2011

As an open market lover why is Bubb blubbering?

[Reply]

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