As the sector awaits the long-promised consultation into charity lotteries, the umbrella body representing the sector has reported a 43 per cent growth in the market within one year.
Charity lotteries, which run the gamut from small hospice lotteries to external lottery managers (ELMs) like the Health Lottery, raised a total of £126m for good causes in 2011/12 – a rise of £24m, or 23 per cent, from the previous year.
The total market - including prizes, returns to good causes and expenses - grew by 43 per cent to be worth £298.9m.
The figures were revealed yesterday at the Lotteries Council AGM, in Leicestershire, at which the organisation also roundly criticised the “heavy regulation” of the sector.
While the Richard Desmond-backed Health Lottery started operating in October 2011, and raised £20m in nine months and has since raised more than £32m, a spokesman for the Lotteries Council said that the £24m increase in 2011/12 could not solely be attributed to that lottery.
“There has been significant growth across the board, from small specialist lotteries to large ELMs,” he told civilsociety.co.uk.
In fact, external lottery managers accounted for £117m of the £126m total turnover of society lotteries in 2011/12.
The government consultation into charity lotteries was first floated by MPs in December, and while there is speculation that the actual launch is imminent, there is yet no word from DCMS.
The meeting in Leicestershire comes just two weeks after the release of a report by nfpSynergy, which pre-empted the DCMS consultation in outlining the key areas in which society lotteries would like to see regulation change.
Clive Mollett, chair of the Lotteries Council, said that society lotteries have “an ever increasing role to play in the UK”.
Mollett took the opportunity to dismiss again the argument that charity lotteries, which are required to give less back to charity than the National Lottery, have taken market share away from the national game. In November 2012, National Lottery operator Camelot announced a record-breaking nine months, covering much of the same period of these recent charity lottery sector’s growth figures, in which it raised £952.8m for good causes – an increase of more than £34m on the year previous.
“Charity lotteries equate to less than 5 per cent of the total revenues generated by the National Lottery,” said Mollett. “Our members are not interested in competing with the National Lottery, but rather working collaboratively with them to support good causes, big and small, right across the UK.”
While some organisations, including the Health Lottery, have called for a reduction in the minimum amount that society lotteries must return to charitable causes from its present 20 per cent, on the while the £126m raised for charity represented 42 per cent of all proceeds from the lotteries.
