16 MARCH 2018

January saw the first 6 months since the start of the Hart Lottery. It has raised more than £10,000 for 
local causes and is on target to reach £25,000 for the first year. There are 45 local causes for supporters who can 
decide which cause to support when buying their lottery tickets. Local good causes are encouraged to sign up 
and get involved with the lottery as it is a great way to raise money.

JULY 2017

The Hart lottery is now up and running. In the first draw 635 tickets were sold and the winner was Helen Newman from Fleet.

visit www.hartlottery.co.uk for more information.

1 DECEMBER 2016

HART DISTRICT LOCAL AUTHORITY LOTTERY

Report of: Corporate Strategy and Policy Development

Manager/Head of Corporate Services

Cabinet member: Councillor Ken Crookes, Finance and Economic
Development

1 PURPOSE OF REPORT

1.1. The purpose of this report is to seek agreement to the establishment of a local
authority lottery for Hart District that would support the local voluntary and
community sector.

2 OFFICER RECOMMENDATION

2.1 That a Hart District Council run Lottery be introduced in 2017 to be known as the
Hart Lottery;

2.2 That subject to due diligence, the Council works with Gatherwell, the external
lottery management company behind Aylesbury Vale and Portsmouth lotteries, to
deliver the Hart Lottery;

2.3 That the purpose of the lottery is to raise funds for local charities, voluntary
organisations and good causes that benefit residents within Hart;

2.4 That the initial set up fee for year 1of £4,300 is sourced from reserves to initiate the
lottery;

2.5 That the ongoing £1,000 annual licence and membership fees is assigned from
ongoing lottery income streams;

2.6 That an annual marketing budget of up to £2,000 be allocated to the lottery (from
ticket receipts) to ensure ongoing lottery awareness and promotion to drive ticket
sales and to promote the lottery amongst good causes;

2.7 That two Council officers – the Head of Corporate Services and the Corporate
Strategy and Policy Development Manager are nominated to be the personal licence
holders;

2.8 That the Council hosts a launch event to promote the lottery – to include press, PR,
and social media, as well as provide additional first draw prizes; and,

2.9 That delegated authority is given to the Portfolio holder for Finance and Economic
Development to agree criteria for the inclusion of good causes and a policy and 
process for the allocation of the good causes central pot in conjunction with relevant
officers
PAPER G
.
3 BACKGROUND

3.1 The establishment of a local authority lottery is a concept being explored by a
number of local authorities across the country. At a time when there are increasing
pressures on funding available to the voluntary and community sector they are being
seen as a way of providing support to bring in additional funding.

3.2 Aylesbury Vale was the first to launch an online local authority lottery (Vale Lottery)
in November 2015. This is run by Gatherwell, an External Lottery Manager (ELM).
Since then, local authority lotteries are known to have started in Portsmouth and in
Mendip, and others are in the process of being set up, including Melton and
Rushmoor.

3.3 The Vale Lottery is selling about 2,200 tickets a week and is expected to make about
£65,000 in the first year for good causes.

3.4 The Gambling Act 2005 includes as a permitted category of a lottery, a ‘local
authority lottery’. Local authority lotteries are promoted by the local authority and
must be licenced by the Gambling Commission. Authorities may use the net
proceeds of such lotteries for any purpose for which they have power to incur
expenditure.

4 LOTTERY OPERATION

4.1 The options for running a local authority lottery include running it in-house, or to
partner with an External Lottery Manager. To run a lottery in-house would require
staffing, including a lottery manager and the purchase and running of software
systems. The costs of this have been explored in detail by other local authorities and
found to be significant. If the Council were to partner with an ELM, other than an
initial start-up costs the operation of the lottery would be fully funded through the
ticket proceeds and would bring in the skills and expertise to run all elements of the
lottery process.

4.2 If Cabinet are minded to agree to developing a local authority lottery it is considered
that appointing an ELM would be the most cost-effective solution and is consistent
with that being used by other local authority lotteries.

4.3 If a model similar to that at Aylesbury Vale is developed through using the same
External Lottery Manager, this would mean that the scheme is likely to operate as
below:

1.Tickets are purchased (on-line only) for £1 and each ticket has a 1 in 50
chance to win;

2. Prizes are likely to be in the range of free tickets for matching 2 out of 6
numbers to a maximum prize of £25,000 for matching all numbers;

5. Draws are every Saturday with results posted live online and winners notified
by email;

6. Players sign up on-line and payment is via Direct Debit or payment card
(taken either on a monthly recurring plan or a 3/6/12 month one-off
payment);

7. Players can purchase multiple tickets for multiple good causes;

8. Winning players are notified via email and receive prize money directly into
their nominated account or can donate their prize to a nominated good
cause;

9.  Good causes are paid their income automatically on a monthly basis.

4.4 The income from each £1 would be broken down as follows:
Specific Good

* minus licence and marketing costs.

4.5 Approximately 60% of all ticket sales would therefore go to good causes. This
compares to 28% in the National Lottery and 20% in the Health Lottery.
The Role of the Council

4.6 In order to operate a Local Authority Lottery, the Council would need to apply for a
Local Authority Lottery Licence from the Gambling Commission. There would need
to be a contractual arrangement with an ELM (who must also be licensed) to run the
lottery although the Council would retain obligations to the Gambling Commission,
including policies on fair and open gambling. A local authority licensed by the
Gambling Commission is required to have at least one Personal Management Licence
holder.

4.7 The Council would need to promote and launch the lottery to good causes who may
wish to sign up, would authorise monthly payments to the good causes and monthly
returns to the Gambling Commission.

4.8 The Council would also need to define eligibility criteria against which applications
from good causes wishing to join the lottery would be assessed. It is proposed that
these criteria be prepared by the Portfolio Holder for Economic Development and
Finance in consultation with relevant officers and Hart Voluntary Action. Similarly,
the Council will need to decide where the money accumulated in the ‘central fund’ is
distributed.

5 IMPACT ON ‘GOOD CAUSES’

5.1 The ‘good causes’ element of the lottery income (circa 60%) would be split between
specific good causes which can be chosen by the ticket purchaser, and a ‘central’ fund
which would be distributed to good causes chosen by the Council. Good causes
wanting to participate in the lottery would apply on-line and need to be approved by
the Council. The ELM would set up a dedicated webpage for each good cause and
provide regular marketing material to be used to promote the lottery.

5.2 Initial discussions with Hart Voluntary Action have been positive. A presentation was
made in November to the Hart Voluntary Action Forum at which a number of issues
were raised:

1. concern at the proportion of income given to the ELM – should be a sliding
scale;
2. request that funds should go to local good causes, not national charities;
3. concern that if there were too many good causes, the additional funding they
were likely to get would be limited;
4. questions as to whether paper tickets could be included.

5.3 The success of a Local Authority Lottery will depend on the success of promotion of
the lottery by the good causes. It is therefore difficult to predict the likely income. In
Aylesbury Vale 2% of the population over 18 are buying a ticket. If this is taken as a
model then just over £40,000pa could be raised for good causes in Hart based on 1
ticket per person. However, in Aylesbury Vale the average is 1.7 ticket per player so
there is the potential for this figure to be higher.

6 FINANCIAL AND RESOURCE IMPLICATIONS

6.1 There will be an initial set up cost for the Council comprising a one-off cost to the
External Lottery Manager (£3,000) plus annual costs of about £650 for the lottery
licence and £350 for Lottery Council Membership (plus Year 1 application costs of
£275 for these in total). The annual costs can be reclaimed through the lottery ticket
sales income.

6.2 There would be some initial officer time required to apply for the relevant licence
and develop the required policies and criteria. In addition, there will need to be some
marketing and promotion of the lottery with good causes.

6.3 Other than the initial outlay, it is considered that there is little financial risk to the
Council as once the lottery is up and running all costs are met through income from
tickets. The ELM has insurance for the jackpot prize thereby protecting the lottery
from financial difficulty in the event of one or more jackpot winners.

7 CONCLUSION AND NEXT STEPS

7.1 A Local Authority Lottery has the potential to raise additional funds for the voluntary
and community sector in Hart at no cost to those groups. Whilst the Council can
do some promotion, the success of the lottery will be down to promotion by those
good causes to the local community.

7.2 It is anticipated that if the Lottery is progressed this would take 12 – 14 weeks to set
up. It is proposed that a target date for implementation of the Lottery would be early
March to coincide with the publication of the next edition of Hart News which could
be used to promote the lottery to the community. It is proposed that Hart Voluntary
Action are engaged in both the set up and on-going running of the lottery.

Contact Details:
Andrew Vallance, Head of Corporate Services, Andrew.vallance@hart.gov.uk 
Katie Bailey, Corporate Strategy and Policy Development Manager, Katie.bailey@hart.gov.uk