I am unsure as to why this story did not make headlines. Anyway, I have stopped buying my tickets online from the National Lottery following this news. 

In March of this year, Camelot, who operates our National Lottery, was fined almost £4 million for failing to manage the lottery correctly. The United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) provides licenses and oversight for all gambling in the UK, both bricks and mortar and online.

So, What Did Camelot Do Wrong?

The UKGC uncovered three significant failings. The first proved that the company had marked 20,000 winning tickets as losing. These mistakes happened when lottery tickets had been scanned through the QR scanner within the mobile app.

The second failure was that 22,000 players purchasing single tickets online were charged for two draw tickets, but the numbers were the same. However, all players were refunded later.

The third and most disturbing is that Camelot targeted self-excluding players. Some players had used Gamstop to exclude themselves from playing online at the National Lottery yet were contacted with offers by Camelot. Some players that Camelot themselves had identified internally as problem gamblers had been messaged within the app. Over 60,000 messages had gone to these people. However, the app did disallow further deposits.

For me, it will be back to tickets from Tesco, and I will check them, old school!