The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has fined national lottery operator Camelot UK £3.15 million (€3.78/$4.17 million) for identifying winning tickets as losing ones through the National Lottery mobile app and targeting known self-excluding gamblers in a marketing campaign.
An investigation carried out by the Commission discovered that as many as 20,000 winning tickets had been incorrectly marked as losing tickets when scanned through a QR scanner on a mobile device. The failures occurred from November 2016 through to September 2020.
Another failure identified during the investigation led to 22,210 players purchasing a single draw ticket but being charged for and receiving two tickets with the same numbers for the draw. The Commission noted that all players affected were identified and refunded the cost of the duplicate ticket if it was a non-winning ticket. For those that won a prize in the draw, their winnings were paid out on both tickets.
The third offence relating to the app saw Camelot send out marketing messages to users who had self-excluded through Gamstop or had opted out of receiving such offers. The offers also went out to some users who Camelot had internally identified as people who were showing signs of problem gambling. These messages went out to 65,400 self-excluding users, however, the investigation did find that the National Lottery app declined any requests to purchase tickets from their accounts.
Speaking of the fine Andrew Rhodes, Gambling Commission Chief Executive, said:
“We are reassured that Camelot has taken steps to make sure that their National Lottery app is fit for purpose. However we must caution Camelot that any failings on their duties will be met with consequences. Today’s announcement reinforces that any operator failing to comply with their licence requirements will be investigated by the Commission and we will not hesitate to issue fines if requirements are breached.”
According to GamblingIndustryFines, this brings the total amount of fines issued by the UKGC so far in 2022 to £22,212,557 (€26,685,744/$29,416,837).
Ciaran has been working within the Gambling Industry as a deep analyst since 2019. His deep knowledge and understanding of all the gambling regulations, and processes makes him a true asset, and an always valuable point of view for Gambling Industry News, allowing us to cover every topics from a brand new perspective.