Complaints have been made about Richard Desmond's new Health Lottery to the Advertising Standards Authority, the Gambling Commission and the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee.
With just one national draw under its belt so far, the Health Lottery has been beset by complaints over coverage it has received in its owner's newspapers, that its structure is against the spirit of the law and that the Lottery is allowing for public misunderstanding of how its money will be spent.
The ASA has received two complaints about the front-page editorial promotion that the Health Lottery, owned by Richard Desmond, received in the newspaper the media mogul also owns, the Daily Express. The ASA has yet to decide whether to launch an investigation into the complaints, which have objected to the coverage on a “number of levels”, said an ASA spokesman.
The parliamentary Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee is also being asked to look into the matter. The Hospice Lotteries Association (HLA) has been given special dispensation to make a submission to the Select Committee inquiry into the implementation of the Gambling Act 2005, even though the inquiry officially closed in June.
Garth Casswell, chair of the HLA, said that while the HLA recognises that the Health Lottery is entirely legal, “we do not believe it follows the ethos of the Act”.
The Act, he said, was not designed “to enable managing companies to make unlimited profits”. Hospice lotteries, said Casswell, generally give between 50p and 60p in the pound to the hospices they support and can amount to up to a third of an individual hospice’s income.
The Health Lottery, which has been approved and is overseen by the DCMS and Gambling Commission, said it is in total compliance with the law.
Casswell told civilsociety.co.uk that the HLA was not against the Health Lottery per se, but is concerned it could divert local supporters because there is "misunderstanding and misinformation” about the way the Lottery funds will support local health charities.
Casswell fears that by the Health Lottery offering a prize draw of £100,000, compared to the £1,000 often put up in single-hospice lotteries, smaller organisations' lotteries would look less attractive to punters.
Health Lottery defends itself
The Health Lottery, however, said that its lottery and the small hospice lotteries are “two completely different things”.
“The Health Lottery wouldn’t want people to stop buying hospice lottery tickets and I don’t think they would,” said a Health Lottery spokesman. He noted that the National Lottery, with far larger jackpots, had not dented hospice lottery income.
“The Health Lottery operates under a different set of lottery regulations, has a significantly different costs structure, relies on extensive retailer networks for ticket sales and raises money for a wide range of local good health causes around health inequality rather than a specific cause, as is the case with hospice lotteries.”
Mystery shopping incident
The HLA had also made a complaint to the Gambling Commission, said Casswell, following a mystery shopping incident in Manchester during which a HLA employee alleges that they asked a Health Lottery ticket seller whether the money raised from that next draw will be able to benefit local health charities. The HLA felt that the Health Lottery’s alleged insistence that local charities could receive funding from that lottery, if true, was misleading. The Gambling Commission does not comment on individual cases.
But Casswell conceded: “The Gambling Commission are perfectly aware of what’s going on and are satisfied that [the Health Lottery] is compliant.”
The Health Lottery spokesman said that both DCMS and the Gambling Commission have both been aware of the Health Lottery for some time, and have approved the lottery which is “absolutely compliant” with law and regulation.
Ceri Edwards, director of policy and communications at the People’s Health Trust, the charity which decides how the Health Lottery is spent, said:
“We’ve already had quite a bit of interest from hospices interested in our funding and we’re about to meet with the Hospices Lotteries Association to explore opportunities for working together.”
“We can support each other… We’re both good causes.”
People's Health Trust makes first Lottery grants
Meanwhile, the People’s Health Trust, which makes the grants from Health Lottery income, has announced its first funding programme and grant recipients. Healthy Places, Healthy People will fund projects which address the social causes of poor health; touching on issues of isolation among older people, support for carers and projects which promote healthy environments and communities.
Grants have already been made to a number of organisations in the East Midlands and Scotland. The largest grants were made to North & South Ayrshire Carers Centre and the School Food Trust, which received £46,801 and £44,069 respectively.
Last week the Trust said that charities had shown significant interest in receiving grants from the Lottery funds.
