Richard Desmond has revealed that Health Lottery ticket sales immediately increased following yesterday’s High Court decision, and said he has given the green light to run a second, mid-week lottery draw.
Speaking to civilsociety.co.uk yesterday afternoon, Desmond (pictured) said that sales had already increased by 10 per cent following the decision by the High Court not to grant Camelot a judicial review of the Gambling Commission’s decision to licence the Health Lottery, which is owned by Desmond’s company Northern and Shell.
“These people [Camelot] have been calling me unlawful and illegal. They’ve done that quite loudly for the last six months. If I was a retailer or a player I would have thought ‘This is a bit dodgy’, but the court has thrown it out and said ‘The Health Lottery is 100 per cent legal and if you don’t like it, mate, change the laws of this country,’” Desmond said.
New mid-week lottery
Desmond also revealed that he has now given the go-ahead to a new mid-week lottery to begin in October. He said the opposition from Camelot had definitely hampered Health Lottery sales thus far.
“I can see more money going to charity [from the Health Lottery],” he said. “My aim is to give away £1m a week. I think I would have been nearer to there had Camelot not caused all this commotion and confusion.”
Camelot, which runs the National Lottery, had taken legal action against the Gambling Commission, arguing it was wrong to allow a licence to the Health Lottery, which is an external lottery manager for 51 society lotteries, because it acts as a de facto national lottery. In a decision handed down yesterday, Justice Stanley Burnton rejected the application saying it was both out of time, and had little chance of success. Camelot announced plans to appeal the decision.
Desmond said that the High Court decision was a victory for the charities the Health Lottery supports. “The Gambling Commission has proved, like Ofcom proved, that they did the correct thing. I’m in favour of the Gambling Commission and Ofcom,” he told civilsociety.co.uk. “You need regulation.”
Desmond: ‘It’s not an easy thing to do’
The sometimes controversial entrepreneur said that the lottery is a way of raising money for charity at a time when traditional fundraising income, and government money, is hard to come by.
Other organisations considering setting up a similarly structured lottery need both passion for supporting charities and deep pockets, he said.
“It probably had cost around £35m up to the end of last year, and probably about £50m now invested. I and my co-directors have invested a lot of time,” he said. “It’s not an easy thing to do. It’s a very, very serious thing – but we knew that.”
Desmond said that Camelot should have welcomed the Health Lottery, rather than challenge it. “I’m sure after this they’ll just apologise if they’ve got any sense. All they’ve done is waste their Canadian owners money and time. It’s so stupid,” he said, referring to the relative size of the National Lottery to the newcomer lottery.
“The guy in Britain playing a lottery believes the money is going to good causes, not to fat cat owners in Canada,” he said. “I’m British and I believe in giving back to British people.”
