The National Lottery: how does it work?

The National Lottery began in November 1994. Since then, it has raised over £43 billion for good causes.

There are four parties that contribute to running the Lottery:

• the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport;
• Camelot Group plc, the current operator;
• the Gambling Commission;
• the individual distributing bodies of Lottery money.

The minimum age for playing Lottery games is 18.

Competition for the fourth Lottery licence

The third licence to run the Lottery came into force in February 2009 and was due to expire in 2023. The Gambling Commission launched the fourth licensing competition in August 2020.

The original timeline for the competition would have seen the award of the next licence announced in October 2021, with a transition period to July 2023, and the fourth licence beginning in August 2023. However, in August 2021, the Gambling Commission said that, following “representations” from applicants, the timeline had been amended. The third licence had been extended by six months. The fourth licence would begin in February 2024.

On 15 March 2022, the Gambling Commission named Allwyn Entertainment Ltd as Preferred Applicant for the fourth National Lottery licence. Camelot said that it was “shocked” by aspects of the Commission’s decision and, on 1 April 2022, announced that it was launching a High Court legal challenge to the Commission’s decision.

In response, the Gambling Commission said that its evaluation had been carried out “fairly and lawfully in accordance with our statutory duties, and we are confident that a court would come to that conclusion”.