Camelot chief executive calls for pan-European lotteries

Camelot chief executive Tim Holley is calling for European lottery operators to consider launching games across national borders to counteract the threat from Internet gaming. It could eventually lead to the National Lottery linking up with foreign operators to launch pan-European games. In a speech on Thursday at the first annual conference of the World Lottery Association (WLA) in Oslo, Holley will alert lottery operators and governments to new technological developments that could affect sales. Holley is acting president of the WLA – a body set up this year to co-ordinate the response of lottery organisations to what they see as the growing threat to revenue posed by an increase in Net gaming, as well as other new media developments such as digital TV. The world lottery market has shrunk by two per cent in the past year, according to a Camelot insider. Holley will tell lottery groups to consider following the example of Viking Lotto – a joint lottery game which runs across Scandinavian countries Norway, Sweden and Finland, as well as Iceland. Holley says: “This model may prove attractive as operators face up to competition. The finance ministers of Europe have to preserve lottery monopolies, and this would clear the way for coalition building.” Another example of cross-border co-operation is the Irish lottery’s tie-up with the New York lottery, offering reciprocal scratchcard prizes of trips to either country. Holley will use the conference as a platform to call for the greater co-ordination of UK gaming laws, and ask lottery organisations to alert their government to the threat from unrestricted gaming.