Camelot to pay £1.15m penalty package following Gambling Commission investigation

UK national lottery operator Camelot has agreed to pay a penalty package totalling £1.15m following a Gambling Commission (UKGC) investigation which revealed “failings relating to its governance, risk and control framework.”

The UKGC began investigating whether Camelot was complying with its ‘fit and proper’ obligations under its Section 5 licence, with the assessment concluding in December 2016.

The UKGC investigation identified five distinct breaches of licensing regulations. The first of these occurred during Camelot’s Olympic medal prize promotion when incomplete results were published on the national lottery website.

The second was a fault with its mobile results checker which provided incorrect prize outcomes to players, which violated fit and proper regulations. Additional failings were discovered in it’s the processing of direct debit instructions, Post Office controls and Camelot’s security measures relating to security measures in respect of information security and physical security, which were deemed to be inadequate. In addition to these identified failings, a further ten breaches of UKGC licensing regulations were discovered but no further action was taken.

In response, Camelot created an “Operational Excellence Programme” to address these findings and deal with any associated breaches.

Gambling Commission executive director Richard Watson, said: “Camelot has taken a number of steps to rectify the issues and given us assurances that they now have the right processes in place to prevent reoccurrences. It is crucial that the National Lottery is run fairly, safely and with integrity and we’ll continue to hold Camelot to account.”

The penalty package comprises a payment in lieu of a financial penalty in the sum of £1.15m for the identified breaches and Camelot’s agreement to rectify the identified issues as soon as possible.

Camelot said in a statement that: “We accept the outcome of the Gambling Commission’s investigation in respect of a number of incidents dating back to 2016. While we have always sought to run The National Lottery to the highest possible standards, we accept that, at the time of these incidents, our standards in certain areas weren’t as rigorous as they should have been and for that we’re sorry.

“We’ve since proactively carried out an extensive programme of work to strengthen our controls, processes and governance arrangements to ensure they are all fit for purpose – and welcome the Commission’s recognition of the work we’ve carried out to mitigate the risk of future issues.”