The UK National Lottery operator Camelot has been imposed a financial penalty amounting to £300,000 by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC). The fine has been issued after Camelot failed to publish the correct results for its Lotto Millionaire Raffle game.
The above-mentioned error occured on October 10th, 2015 when the National Lottery operator published wrong set of results on its official website. The incorrect results for the Lotto Millionaire Raffle game were displayed on the website for an hour and were seen by more than 100,000 users.
The inaccuracy led to an investigation of the case by the Gambling Commission and is now punished by the UK regulatory authority by imposing a fine.
The investigation of the Gambling Commission proved that the terms of Camelot’s operating license were breached by the National Lottery operator in two major aspects. The first one was related to the fact that everyone, who had seen the wrong information published, were misled. On the other hand, the UK regulatory body found that both the processes and the procedures used were not suitable for the purpose.
This is not the first time when Camelot has been accused in misleading the public. There were two other similar incidents which were determined by the watchdog as breaches. The first case was related to an advertisement featuring an incorrect jackpot which was published on the results checker of Euro Millions in November 2015. The other one concerned some inaccurate information associated with the Raffle prize tier in December 2015.
What was different about the above-mentioned cases was the fact their impact was considered considerably lower, so additional sanctions were not imposed to the UK National Lottery operator.
According to the Executive Director of the UKGC Sarah Gardner, it is of paramount importance for people to be able to have confidence in the management of the National Lottery. She added that the failures of Camelot to prove it was worthy for users’ trust happened to become the reason for a large number of National Lottery players to end up being misled, and this would undoubtedly endanger the public confidence in the operator.
Mrs. Gardner also said explained that players’ interest should be always put first when it comes to such errors. She assured the public that UK Gambling Commission would do everything possible to take whatever action was necessary to make the requirements clear and to considerably reduce the likelihood of such incidents happen in the future.
- Author
Olivia Cole
