Camelot filed a lawsuit against the Gambling Commission for its decision to choose Allwyn to run the UK National Lottery.
High Court proceedings have been filed by the operator, which is the only licensee of the National Lottery and has held that position since 1994. The Gambling Commission chose Allwyn, formerly known as the Sazka Group, to be the first non Camelot company to run the National Lottery in 28 years.
Nigel Railton, the chief executive of Camelot said: “We have filed a lawsuit today as a candidate for the 4th licence. We are convinced that this Gambling Commission decision is wrong. When we got the results, some aspects of the decisions shocked us.
The Commission failed to respond satisfactorily despite lengthy correspondence. “We have no other choice than to request the court’s investigation.”
Railton continued to say that, as Camelot is the licensee at the moment, the change would likely impact many employees. These people therefore deserved an explanation more detailed of Allwyn’s choice.
He said: “Independent scrutiny of this process is needed, regardless of Camelot’s dual role as the current operator of the National Lottery and its application for the new licence,” he added. Separately, over 1,000 Camelot staff work tirelessly in order to run the National Lottery successfully under the current license. They are at least owed an explanation.
Camelot has not specified which elements of the selection procedure will be the focus of its legal action.
A report in last Sunday’s Sunday Telegraph stated that Camelot would be launching a legal action. The article claimed Camelot received the top score under a scoring system in which all bids are scored using scorecards. The system also included a risk discount that would be applied to the scores to account for any operator who might not reach their projected targets.
The report states that the effect of “risk discounts” were then reduced, and the bids rescored. This pushed Allwyn to first place.
The regulator responded to the complaint by defending the decision-making process and expressing confidence that it would prevail.
A spokesperson stated that “we regret Camelot’s decision to file legal action following the result of a highly-successful competition for the 4th national lottery license.” The competition, as well as our evaluation of the results were done in a fair and legal manner according to our duties. We are confident that any court will reach this conclusion.
We are confident we ran a fair, robust and competitive competition. “We are confident that we have run a fair and robust competition.”
A spokesperson said that the legal challenge would “not help” ensure a smooth transition from a third to a fourth license, but added the regulator was still confident in Camelot’s ability to meet its licence requirements until the term of its current licence expires on February 20, 2024.
“Our top priority is to ensure that our decision will be implemented and a smooth and timely transition from the current licence to the new one, to benefit participants and charitable causes. The proceedings won’t help, but we are confident that Camelot is going to honor its obligation as current licensee and cooperate with the transition. We will use all the tools we have to make that happen.
We will be unable to disclose any details until the litigation is concluded. This is to ensure the integrity of the legal process.
A Gambling Commission spokeswoman told iGB at the time that she was confident about the competition.
Allwyn stated that, upon being chosen by the Gambling Commission, its bid was selected because “it [was] judged as the best method of increasing returns to charitable causes through revitalising National Lottery on a sustainable and safe basis”.
