Camelot Fined £1.2M By Gambling Regulator
Gambling regulators have fined the National Lottery operator Camelot for £1.2m. This is for a series of failings that included incorrectly issuing “non-winning” messages to players.
UK National Lottery operator Camelot has conceded its standards were not up to scratch, after being fined £1.2m by the Gambling Commission for five controls-related failures. Not great, right?
The Post Office was also implicated in one of five sanctions handed out by the Gambling Commission on Thursday. Governance between Camelot and the Post Office was lacking over an eight-year period to April 2016.
What Did Camelot Do?
The gaming operator’s breaches included failings in direct debit instruction, security measures, Post Office controls and publishing incomplete results for its Olympic medal prize promotion.
However, the most notable offense was incorrect prize outcomes on its mobile app. This meant players may have seen a “non-winning” message even if they possessed a winning ticket.
Camelot said: “ We have always sought to run The National Lottery to the highest possible standards.
“We accept that, at the time of these incidents, our standards in certain areas weren’t as rigorous as they should have been and for that we’re sorry.”
Despite the fine, the Gambling Commission initially put its investigation on hold while they created an operational excellence programme.
They engaged positively with the regulator and “early acceptance of failings.”
Furthermore, Richard Watson, Gambling Commission Executive Director, commented on the situation.
“They have taken a number of steps to rectify the issues.
Also, they “have given us assurances that they now have the right processes in place to prevent reoccurrences.
“We’ll continue to hold Camelot to account.”
