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Camelot is committed to operating The National Lottery in a socially responsible way. On the one hand it needs to keep the Lottery’s portfolio of games exciting and fun to play, increase sales and therefore returns to the Good Causes, but not to the detriment of the vulnerable, like low income groups or underage players.
Lottery legislation makes it an offence for anyone under the age of 16 to be sold any lottery products. Lottery operator Camelot is required, by its regulator The National Lottery Commission, to use its ‘best endeavours’ to prevent underage sales and it can not pay out a prize to anyone under the age of 16.
Camelot has pledged to do everything possible to combat underage sales. But we are aware that no matter how many steps we take we will never be able to totally eradicate the problem. Therefore we have tried to manage this issue through a range of measures.
Camelot has worked closely with Trading Standards departments around the country helping with their test purchasing initiatives, we have set up a special ‘Retailer Forum’ to identify best practice in preventing sales to minors, launched our own education and training programme - ‘Operation Child’, and given our support to proof-of-age cards.
Camelot has also sponsored GamCare’s education pack for youth groups: A Dead Cert? The pack encourages young people (aged 12-18) to make safe, legal, and low-risk choices about gambling.
We have also introduced a dedicated telephone hotline (0870 160 0016) to encourage the public to report retailers they believe have sold to children. All calls are fully investigated by Camelot’s security team.
Camelot works very closely with retailers as they are our point of contact with players.
To properly communicate with our retailers, we have introduced a ‘Retailer Forum’, comprising of representatives of trade organisations, independent and multiple retailers, which discusses best practice in preventing sales to minors. The Forum meets four times a year and has been actively involved in various projects, including the recent retail network optimisation programme. For further information on the forum, please visit Camelot’s website.
When a terminal is installed in a retailer’s, all staff are trained to ensure they are implementing the necessary safeguards to prevent under-age sales. They must also ensure that no-one under the age of 16 is behind the counter selling lottery products, as this is also illegal. All retailers are provided with a Retailer Handbook which details the necessary safeguards, a refusal register and relevant point of sale information. All of these are ongoing and regularly updated.
Camelot runs regular ‘Retailer Vigilance Campaigns’, aimed at focussing retailers’ attention on continued prevention of under-age sales and on highlighting the issue to their customers through new point-of-sale, ‘Prove it’ badges, a double-page spread in ‘Jackpot’ (Camelot’s magazine dedicated to retailers) and new staff room posters.
Camelot realises the need to ensure that retailers are implementing the necessary safeguards to prevent under-age sales. Although we are committed to cracking the problem of under-age play, we are more than aware of the difficulties facing our retailers.
The Trading Standards departments of local authorities across the country have the power to undertake test purchasing. Many do so and test for a range of under-age products including videos, tobacco, solvents, fireworks, alcohol, and on occasion lottery products.
By law Trading Standards can use children aged under 16 to take part in these test purchases. In the event that lottery tickets or scratchcards are sold in the course of one of the operations, it is illegal and Camelot is informed. In response Camelot will check to see that best practice was observed and will subsequently suspend the terminal of the offending retailer. This suspension occurs whether a prosecution takes place or not, and is a minimum of three months.
For more information about the work of Trading Standards, please log onto www.tradingstandards.gov.uk.
To combat the issue of underage sales Camelot, in consultation with the lottery regulator, The National Lottery Commission, developed its own test purchasing programme, called Operation Child.
It’s a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ campaign in which actors aged over 16, but who look and dress younger try to buy lottery tickets.
If, on the first visit, a retailer sells to the teenager, extra training resources will be provided to help them implement safeguards against underage sales. If, after further training, a retailer sells on the next two visits they will lose their lottery terminal. To date a total of six terminals have been removed as part of Operation Child.
In this licence, Camelot has committed to double the number of visits to 10,000 in total.
The latest Operation Child figures show 92.7% of retailers visited refused to sell.
These figures show that a mixture of training, support and advice and the real economic sanction of losing out on an average of £7,000 a year in retailer commission is working.
Camelot, as operator of The National Lottery, an age-restricted product, is a supporter of proof-of-age cards. These include Citizen Card, Validate and local schemes in Essex and Wales.
Citizen Card, which was launched by George Howarth MP in February 1998. It is a nationwide industry-led initiative for a proof-of-age card for young people. Details were sent to more than 100,000 retail outlets - including National Lottery outlets. The scheme will also be run through schools.
Citizen Card is backed by major retail and commercial organisations, including Camelot. It was developed in close association with Trading Standards and the Government. Camelot has distributed Citizen Card packs to all lottery outlets.
For more information about Citizen Card, please log on to their website: www.citizencard.co.uk.
A National Lottery Commission survey, undertaken June/July 1999, highlighted that children playing the lottery are more likely to have been given the tickets by a parent than have illegally bought tickets themselves. Camelot is working with parenting organisations to increase the awareness of parents of the dangers of gambling for young people. This has included the joint sponsorship with Parentline Plus and GamCare of a leaflet to help parents decide if their child has a gambling problem and how this can be addressed. For further information on this survey please log on to The National Lottery Commission’s website: www.natlotcomm.gov.uk.
