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Play Monday closes due to poor ticket sales

Fundraising | Gemma Ware | 1 Dec 2007

The chief executive of Play Monday, the struggling charity lottery which closed last month after failing ticket sales meant it was no longer commercially viable, said he did not think a similar venture could work in the future.

Martin Higginson, chief executive of NetPlay TV which rescued the lottery formerly known as Monday from its previous owners Chariot in February, said the lottery was not getting enough ticket sales to make it work.

“We tried our best working with all the charities and we tried promoting it to a number of charities’ databases. Unfortunately we didn’t get the level of response that we had hoped for, and made a decision that it was not commercially viable.”

Higginson said commercial charity lotteries were a “tall order” and he did not think another would work in the future. “You have to promote it and the challenges are huge.”

The lottery raised over £2m since it was launched by Chariot in May 2006, and Higginson said Play Monday had raised over £200,000 for charity since it was taken over by NetPlay in June.

Higginson would not confirm how many charities were involved in Play Monday at its close on 20 November, but it is understood to be around 35, including Crisis, Breast Cancer Campaign and the Born Free Foundation.

A number of larger charities including the British Red Cross, WWF, RNID and Mencap withdrew from the scheme when it was taken over by NetPlay.

Higginson said that NetPlay had spent around £200,000 on marketing, including mailings to charity databases, and the company had “tried to do our best in promoting it”.

“At no stage has there been any cost to any charity. Every charity that’s contacted me personally has been very, very grateful for the money that we’ve raised for them.”

Netplay now owns the database of Play Monday players and Higginson said it was considering what to do with it.

Angeline Swan, senior marketing co-ordinator of the Born Free Foundation, said she was saddened by the closure of the lottery, which had proved quite profitable for the charity. “We thought it was going quite well but unfortunately it wasn’t profitable for them to do that.”

She said the charity would consider taking part in future lotteries. “It’s a very good thing for charities generally and for NGOs, especially an animal charity like ourselves, as we don’t receive lottery funding from Camelot and other lottery funders.”

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Who's Who: Gemma Ware