Serving the nation’s dreams

Our aim is to maximise returns to Good Causes in a socially responsible way. We need to win the trust of our players and of society at large in order to raise as much for Good Causes as possible. The National Lottery exists for the benefit of the UK, so it is vital that the civic and social regeneration funded by Good Causes is not compromised by any lack of integrity in our operations. Therefore our priority – in this Licence and the third Licence beginning in February 2009 – is to develop new games and new ways to play that encourage millions of people to spend small amounts.

We strive to protect vulnerable players and prevent underage play, to support our winners through what can be a life-changing experience – and to raise awareness of problem gaming.

We are regulated by the National Lottery Commission (NLC), entirely separately from the gambling sector and the Gambling Act. The terms of our operating Licence include strong commitments to protecting our players, but we take pride in going above and beyond those requirements. Our work to educate players, to develop game design tools and to create additional online safeguards are just a few of the areas in which we exceed the requirements placed on us.

We are committed to building a National Lottery which is respected and trusted – and which can be depended on to continue to raise as much money for Good Causes as possible. This is particularly important as we approach the start of the new Licence. Sales rose last year and we continue to be ranked by the independent La Fleur Study as the 4th largest lottery in the world, but only 54th when measured by per capita spend. Under our new Licence plans we will build on that position while maintaining our reputation for responsible action. In developing our successful Licence bid we spent more than two years working to better understand players’ needs and to develop new game proposals to attract the broadest range of players possible. In this process we consulted over 170,000 players

In the new Licence we will further embed responsible play measures in our day-to-day operations and provide leading edge player protection methods through the use of appropriate technology.

Our guiding principles in this area of our work are:

• Making responsible play the principle priority in our commercial decision-making
• Focussing on preventing excessive and underage play in all initiatives and backing this up with a comprehensive system to monitor and act where required
• Maintaining our players’ trust in The National Lottery by upholding high standards of responsible play, to ensure their engagement in our games and protect the returns to Good Causes.

We are continuing to take a lead in online protection and, in the international lottery sector, we remain a global standard setter in responsible play. The latter is a role we will continue to develop in the new Licence period, beginning in February 2009.

We make a significant positive impact on society. Since the lottery began, we have created more than 2,100 millionaires and raised more than £21 billion for Good Causes, funding the largest programme of civic and social regeneration seen in the UK since the 19th Century. Read more about the impact of The National Lottery.

Our goal is to raise as much as we can for Good Causes in a socially responsible way. We believe the best way to do this is to encourage a large number of players to spend small amounts. Read more about how we maximise returns for Good Causes.

We are leading the introduction of international standards on responsible play. Read more about how we’re setting global standards for player protection.

We consult with experts as part of our work to continuously review and monitor our strategies for preventing underage and excessive play. Read more about our work with industry experts on responsible play.

Player protection starts with the design of our games. Read more about the way we are designing games.

We strive to promote our products with great adverts which adhere to advertising codes of practice. Read more about how we advertise and market our products.

As operators of the most successful interactive lottery in the world, we make the protection of players using those newer channels a top priority. Read more about how we protect players online.

We continue to work with our traditional retail partners to prevent underage and excessive play. Read more about the measures we have to protect players buying tickets from retail outlets.

We consider it a priority to educate the public, our retailers and our employees about responsible gaming and gambling. Read more about education and awareness.

Winning the lottery can bring its own pressures, so we do all we can to help our winners deal with the changes to their lifestyles. Read more about the protection, advice and support we give to our winners.