Lotteries And Amusement Act 1976

(NB:  As with all Acts please ensure this is the latest information).

Explanatory Notes For The Guidance Of Local Societies

2. Registration of Society. In order to obtain the benefits of the Act, the society (an expression which includes a local branch or section of a society organised on a national or area basis) must be one, which is established and conducted wholly, or mainly for one or more of the following purposes, that is to say:

(a) Charitable purposes;
(b) Participation in or support of athletic sports or games or cultural activities;
(c) Purposes, which, not being described in paragraph (a) or (b) above, are neither purposes or private gain nor purposes of any commercial undertaking.
Applications for registration should be made to the local authority. Every registered society must pay to the local authority on the first day of January in every year, the statutory fee of £17.50. At any time, however, the society may apply for their registration to be cancelled, and the local authority must in any such case cancel the registration accordingly.

3. Conduct of Lotteries. The act legalises only two types of lotteries promoted for raising money to be applied for purposes of a registered society. The first is a lottery in which the total value of tickets of chances to be sold is £10,000 or less; the second is where the scheme has been registered with the Gaming Board before any tickets or chances are sold. In the latter case both the total value or tickets or chances sold and the prizes offered may be greater than in the case of an unregistered scheme.

Conditions relating to societies' lotteries:
The following conditions apply in cases of lotteries where the total value of tickets or chances to be sold is £10,000 or less:

(a) No prize may exceed £2,000 in amount or value
(b) The amount of the proceeds appropriated on account of expenses (exclusive of prizes) may not exceed the expenses actually incurred or 25% of those proceeds, whichever is the less, unless it can be shown that the proceeds fell short of the sum reasonably estimated.

The following conditions apply in cases of lotteries where the scheme is registered with the Gaming Board:

a) No prize may exceed in amount or value the following sums:
(i) £6,000 for a short-term lottery (i.e. where less than one month has passed between the date of that lottery and the date of a previous lottery promoted on behalf of the same society)
(ii) £9,000 for a medium-term lottery (i.e. where less than three months but not less than one month has passed between the date of that lottery and the date of a previous lottery promoted on behalf of the same society);
(iii) £12,000 for any other lottery;

b) The total value of tickets or chances sold may not exceed £45,000 for a short-term lottery, £90,000 for a medium-term lottery or £180,000 for any other lottery;

c) The amount of proceeds appropriated on account of expenses (exclusive of prizes) may not exceed the expenses actually incurred or where the proceeds do not exceed £10,000, 25% thereof, or where they do exceed £10,000, 15% of those proceeds or such larger percentage not exceeding 25% as the Board may authorise, whichever is the less, unless it can be shown that the proceeds fell short of the sum reasonably estimated.

The following conditions apply to both types of lotteries:

a) The promoter of the lottery must be a member of the society authorised in writing by the governing body of the society to act as such;

b) No society may hold more than 52 lotteries in any period of twelve months, but when the date of two or more lotteries promoted on behalf of one society is the same and the total value of the tickets or chances does not exceed £45,000 all those lotteries shall be treated as one;

c) The date of any lottery promoted on behalf of a society may be not be less than seven days after the date of any previous lottery promoted on behalf of that society, except that the date of a lottery promoted for the purpose of selling tickets or chances wholly or mainly to person attending a particular athletic or sporting event may be less than seven days after a previous lottery;

d) No ticket or chance in a lottery may be sold or distributed, or offered for sale, more than three months before the date of any previous lottery promoted by or on behalf of the same society and no person shall be invited to purchase any group of tickets or chances in a set of lotteries in which the determination of the winners in the lotteries is designed to secure that a person holding a group of winning tickets or chances is a winner of a prize in each lottery in the set of lotteries to which that group of tickets or chances relates.

e) Every ticket and every notice or advertisement of a lottery lawfully exhibited, distributed or published must specify the name of the society, the name and address of the promoter and date of the lottery. Where reference is made in any such ticket, notice or advertisement to a person who, for reward, is acting or assisting, or has acted or assisted, in the promotion of the lottery, the size of the lettering used in such reference must not exceed the size of the smallest lettering to specify the name of the society and such reference must not be given greater prominence than the society's name.

f) Every ticket or chance in a lottery must also specify the name of the registration authority with which the society is registered under the Act.

g) No ticket or chance in a lottery may be sold by or to a person under 16 years of age; in any street (except by a person present in a kiosk or shop premises having no space for the accommodation of customers) and no ticket or chance may be sold in any licensed betting office, any premises used wholly or mainly for providing amusements with prizes and/or by means of slot machines, or in any bingo or gaming club;

h) No ticket or chance may be sold by a means of a vending machine, or to a person in any street (except by a person present in a kiosk or shop premises having no space for the accommodation of customers) and no ticket or chance may be sold in any licensed betting office, any premises used wholly or mainly for providing amusements with prizes and/or by means of slot machines, or in any bingo or gaming club;

i) No ticket or chance may be sold by a person when visiting any other person at his home in the discharge of any official, professional or commercial function not connected with lotteries;

j) No ticket or chance may be sold at a price exceeding £1.00; the price of every ticket must be the same and must be stated on the ticket;

k) No person may be admitted to participate in a lottery in respect of a ticket or chance except after payment to the society of the whole price of the ticket or chance, and no money received for or on account of a ticket or chance may in any circumstances be returned.

l) The whole proceeds after deducting sums lawfully appropriated on account of expenses or for the provision of prizes, must be applied to the purposes of the society such as are described in paragraph 2 above;

m) The amount of proceeds of a lottery appropriated for the provision of prizes must not exceed one half of the whole proceeds, unless it can be shown that the proceeds fell short of the sum reasonably estimated;

n) No person supplying lottery tickets may be requested or required to supply them in such a manner, or so marked, as to enable a winning ticket (i.e. a ticket entitling the holder to claim a prize) to be identified as such before it is sold. This regulation applies to tickets (commonly known as 'instant lottery' tickets) which are manufactured or designed so as to conceal such words, figures, symbols etc., as would, if revealed, indicate whether a ticket is a winning ticket or not;

o) No prize may be offered on such terms that the winning of a prize depends on the purchase of more than one ticket or chance in the lottery;

p) A society must approve a scheme for the promotion of any lottery and such scheme must comply with the provisions in the Lotteries Regulations 1977 (S.I. 1977 No. 256), as amended by the Lotteries (Amendment) Regulations 1981 (S.I. 1981 No 109) and the Lotteries (Amendment) Regulations 1988 (S.I. 1988 No. 2161).
Any breach of these conditions constitutes an offence for which the promoter (unless the contravention took place without his knowledge) and any person who is party thereto will be liable for prosecution, in accordance with the provisions of section 13 of the Act.

4. Returns. When a lottery has been held, the promoter must send a return relating thereto to the local authority, not later than the end of the third month after the date of the lottery. Forms of return are available on request at the offices of the local authority and must comply with the terms of Part II of Schedule 1 to the Act. The return must be certified by two members of the society (other than the promoter), being persons of full age appointed in writing by the governing body of the society. Failure to send a return in accordance with the statutory provisions constitutes an offence, and any person who knowingly gives or certifies any false information in such a return, also renders him liable to prosecution.

5. Pool Betting. Pool betting duty payable (if any) in respect of a lottery may be included in the sums, which may be deducted from the proceeds before they are applied to the purposes of the society. This duty is payable on all bets made by way of 'pool betting', that is, bets which are not at fixed odds and in particular those where a number of person make bets:

(a) On terms that the winnings of such of those persons as are winners shall be, or be a share of, or be determined by reference to, the stake money paid or agreed to be paid by those persons, whether the bets are made by means of a totalisator, or by filling up and returning coupons or other printed or written forms, or otherwise howsoever; or

(b) On terms that the winnings of such of those persons as are winners, shall be, or shall include, an amount (not determined by reference to the stake money paid or agreed to be paid by those persons) which is divisible in any proportions among such of those persons as are winners; or

(c) On the basis that the winners or their winnings shall, to any extent, be at the discretion of the promoter or some other person.

Copyright Cat. No. B.L.5.

For more details on the above please contact:
Shaw & Sons Ltd
Shaway House
Crayford
Kent
DA1 4BZ

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