The regulatory body of the Irish National Lottery has found that Premier Lotteries Ireland (PLI) had violated the provisions of law and licence related to three scratch-card games.
Yesterday, Ireland’s lottery watchdog slammed the company that currently operates the National Lottery for breaching three provisions of the National Lottery Act 2013, as well as its own lottery licence issued by the country’s Government. As revealed by the regulator, the violations were associated with three scratch-card games in which it found that the initially announced number of the available top prizes did not correspond the one that was permitted for each of the games. Two of the products – Congratulations 186 and Congratulations 223 – ran in 2019, and the third one, Diamond Bingo Doubler, was available in 2015.
Currently, none of the scratch-cards offered by any of the games is being offered any more.
Last December, Premier Lotteries Ireland itself revealed the breaches after finding out its mistake. Despite that, the company, which currently operates Ireland’s National Lottery, faced fierce criticism because of its decision to continue offering the products without addressing and informing its customers immediately after the violation was found.
After an inquiry held into the matter, the country’s gambling regulator found that a human mistake and poor control measures on the part of PLI resulted in the omission of the prizes. These factors led to the violation of three rules of the National Lottery Act 2013 and the National Lottery operator’s licence.
No Licence Payments Withheld from Premier Lotteries Ireland Due to Failures
The above-mentioned breaches included failure to make sure that statements regarding games were true, failure to hold three lottery games in line with the existing legislation and licence requirements, and failures to ensure an adequate internal control system to comply with the relevant provisions of the National Lottery Act of 2013 and the PLI’s operating licence in regard to successor games.
However, despite the breaches, the National Lottery regulator has decided not to withhold licence payments from Premier Lotteries Ireland because of the compliance failures. As found by regulator Carol Boate, PLI had been helpful during the investigation and revised its control measures to make sure that no such mistakes would occur in the future.
No negative impact was inflicted on the player participation in the National Lottery’s games by the inquiry. According to the watchdog, PLI’s actions did not hurt the returns to good causes supported by the National Lottery, either.
Apart from that, the regulatory body revealed that the National Lottery operator had returned the €180,000 worth of the unavailable prizes to players via a New Year’s draw that was funded by the company itself. Premier Lotteries Ireland also made a donation of €50,000 to a charity.
- Author
Olivia Cole
