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Lotteries
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Lotteries
Small societies, sports
clubs, churches and similar organisations often promote charitable
fund-raising locally using tickets leading to a prize draw.
These are lotteries and the promoting society may need to be
registered with the Local Authority unless the type of lottery is
exempt.
Where all the tickets are to be sold either to members of the
same organisation only, persons who work at the same premises or
people who reside at the same premises and all the proceeds go
either in prizes to the ticket holders or to the funds of the
organising society, then this is classed as a private lottery.
The main aspect of this type of lottery is that tickets cannot
be on general sale in any way, even to the extent that say a person
entering a lottery organised at the sports club they belong to
cannot sell tickets to their spouse at home. Private lotteries do
not need to be registered. Also using "cloakroom tickets" for draws
at fetes, dinner dances etc. is only permissible where tickets
are sold and drawn on the same day and profits go to the fund
raising body. To check whether a lottery you intend to promote is
exempt further details are available from the links below.
Where a lottery does not fall within these circumstances, and
proceeds will not be used for private gain or a commercial
undertaking, it is a society lottery and needs to be registered
with the Council or, where the value of tickets sold for a lottery
exceeds £20,000 or the total for all lotteries held within a
calendar year will exceed £250,000, with the gamling commission.
Further information on society lotteries is also available from the
links below.
Also the Gambling Commission has provided a document called
'Lotteries and the Law' on their website.
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