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Culture Secretary raises concerns about Health Lottery 2

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 28 Oct 2011

The new Health Lottery is facing investigations into both its advertising and general structure, after the Culture Secretary voiced concerns about whether it might erode other charitable income.

Jeremy Hunt told the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee that both the National Lottery Commission and the Gambling Commission have been asked to investigate the lottery, which claims to be able to raise £50m for health causes a year.

While the lottery had been given the all-clear by the Gambling Commission before it began operations earlier this month, Hunt said he now has concerns about what impact the lottery might have on small society lotteries.

“I am worried about the Health Lottery because protecting the income of good causes is a very, very important responsibility that this government has,” he said.

“Society lotteries are allowed on the basis that they are local lotteries. We are doing some work to look into what the impact of the Health Lottery might be on good-cause revenues.”

He said that if the commissions investigating the lottery find it not in compliance with the law “I expect them to take robust action”.

Civilsociety.co.uk reported earlier this month that the Hospice Lotteries Association in particular was concerned about the impact that the Health Lottery might have on its members' society lotteries revenue, and was concerned that it was exploiting loopholes in the law to market a large and profitable lottery by combining 51 society lotteries.

Meanwhile, the Advertising Standards Authority has now received ten complaints about the promotion of the Health Lottery in the form of its television advert, two national press ads, a regional ad and leaflet. The complaints are largely focused on alleged misrepresentation of how prizes are distributed, but others complained that national press advertising had not been clearly labelled as such. There had been some complaints that front-page stories in lottery owner Richard Desmond’s newspaper, the Daily Express, were tantamount to un-classified advertorial.

A statement from Health Lottery chief executive Martin Hall said that the lottery was not poaching punters from other lotteries.

“We know from recent data that sales in the National Lottery are in fact £50,000 higher per draw since the launch of the Health Lottery, proving the marketing maxim that a launch will also drive sales for the market leader and generally refresh consumer interest in a category.

“When this is added to the £50m of new money the Health Lottery will generate this is excellent news for charities, with no losers in sight.”

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