Big Lottery Fund Receives £60 Million from the Olympic Lottery Distribution Fund
Last Updated: Thursday 24th September 2020, 12:37
The Big Lottery Fund (BIG) is set to receive £60 million from the Olympic Lottery Distribution Fund (OLDF) two years after the 2012 London Olympics. In 2007 the previous government used funding from BIG and other sources to cover a gap in the budget for the Summer Olympic Games. BIG provided £425 million while an additional £250 million came from other lottery sources. The Olympic Lottery Distribution Fund is being wound up following the successful games in 2012 and, per a prior agreement, will sell their assets to repay the funds provided by the lottery distributors. Any surplus funds will be used for good causes supported by the National Lottery.
The former Minister for Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson, estimated that between £100 million and £150 million in funds could be returned to various sources within the next few months and that at least £69 million will be raised from the sale of the Olympic Village alone. As BIG contributed a large amount of funding for the UK’s hugely successful 2012 Olympic Games, they are set to receive an appropriate portion of the proceeds from the sale of OLDF assets over the following months.
This is only a small amount of the funding that will be returned to various sources over the next 15-16 years. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimated that the sales of Olympic Park lands will result in £675 million in revenue that will eventually be returned to distributors of lottery funds.
The Big Lottery Fund provides support and funding to a number of good causes across the UK and is directly responsible for distributing 40 percent of funds raised through National Lottery ticket sales. Over £6 billion has been allocated to various charities, programmes and organisations since BIG began operating in June 2004.
If you’d like to support great causes across the country and earn a chance to win a life-changing prize, then why not visit the Lottery Tickets tab for more information?