Responding to a study into the potential removal of UK lottery ticket sales cap, the government said it will make no changes at this point.
Gambling Minister Baroness Twycross highlighted that the main concern for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is that any amendment made to the current landscape will threaten the sustainability of the National Lottery (NL) and its government-protected status.
In 2020, the government introduced a new sales limit on society lotteries from £10m to £50m as a response to concerns from society lottery operators that their growth had been stifled by the limits they have been operating in.
A subsequent study was conducted by market analyst WPI Economics on behalf of the DCMS, setting out to explore the effects on the UK’s National Lottery, society lotteries and charity funding if those limits were further increased to £100m or disbanded altogether.
The results showed positive developments for the People’s Postcode Lottery (PPL) and some growth for good causes funding, but also a negative impact on the National Lottery.
Regarding the PPL, ticket sales were shown to grow by an estimate of between £51m and £447m if the sales ceiling was to increase to £100m, with its share in the society lotteries market increasing from the current 61.8% to somewhere between 63.6% and 73.9%.
Additionally, if the limits are removed altogether, WPI expects the PPL to not have the need for multiple licence management anymore, potentially reducing its operating costs and providing leeway for increased contributions to charities.
As a result, WPI predicts that PPL will unlock an additional £17m to £157m in charity funding, which will bring an overall net increase in good causes contributions by between 0.8% and 6.5%.
On the opposite side, however, WPI says that the NL will take a hit to its sales, which will decrease by between £25m and £148m if the sales limit is brought up to £100m. This would lead to a drop in NL funding for good causes of between £5m and £30m.
And while the NL retains more than 80% market share in all potential scenarios devised by WPI, a further removal of the limit altogether would put it in a situation where it would no longer be capable of sustaining the high prizes it attracts the most players with.
“The Government wants a lotteries sector centred on one national lottery – The National Lottery – whilst continuing to support the hundreds of wider society lotteries that exist,” Twycross said.
“It is a national institution, which the Government is proud of and wants to protect.
“As the research sets out potential negative impacts of increasing the society lotteries limits on the National Lottery…the Government has taken the decision not to make further changes to society lottery limits at this time.”