Lottery Licence
Later today Camelot Group plc will find out whether or not it will be licensed to continue operating the National Lottery in the UK until 2019. It has a good chance, not least because there is just one other company up for the vote: the Sugal and Damani Lottery Agency - a private limited company (and biggest lottery company) in India.
To my mind, there are positive aspects to both of the possible outcomes, and the great thing about this way of thinking is that I'll feel good no matter what happens. Here's why:
If Camelot retains control...
Then things will pretty much continue as they are now. Camelot Group plc has been running the National Lottery since its launch in 1994, and when you compare the Lotto and related games with other lottery games around the world, we have quite a lot to be proud of. Games are reliable, there have been very few glitches and things seem to be as corruption-free as it's possible to get. On top of all this, over £20 billion has been raised for Good Causes since November 1994.
Camelot will pursue their plans for a global Super-Lotto. The UK played a key role in getting the Euromillions lottery off the ground, so there is no reason why we can't do the same thing with a worldwide lottery. This would give us a chance to win around £250 million. Now that's obviously not enough to live on, but it's a great start....
If Sugal and Damani takes over...
Then we can expect things to change. We have to remember that the UK National Lottery we all enjoy is only Camelot's interpretation of how a lottery should be run. A new lottery operator would no doubt shake things up considerably, and we could well discover that although there would doubtless be people who moan about any changes, most of us know that change can be a very good thing, even if it is uncomfortable at first.
STOP PRESS!!!
At around 10:15am, it was announced that Camelot Group plc will continue to operate the UK National Lottery for a third term. This means that the current operator will retain control of the game until 2019. Here's looking forward to the launch of a World Lottery in the years to come!
Article Last Updated: 07/08/2007 15:05:38
