Camelot has operated the UK National Lottery since it began in 1994. Corporate responsibility lies at the heart of our business, alongside our goal of raising as much money as possible for Good Causes in a socially responsible way. We see stakeholder engagement as a core pillar of our corporate responsibility work and one that enables us to achieve this ongoing goal.
Camelot is responsible for developing and marketing new games, managing the lottery infrastructure, providing services for players and winners, and working closely with a large network of retailers. Around 70% of UK adults regularly play National Lottery games – including draw-based games, such as Lotto, Thunderball and EuroMillions, as well as Scratchcards and online Instant Win Games.
The UK National Lottery is the sixth largest lottery in the world in terms of sales but 66th in the world in terms of per capita spend – with an average spend of around £3 per player per week – highlighting the success of our strategy to encourage many people to play but to spend relatively little.
Communicating with our stakeholders
Camelot engages in a variety of ways with a wide range of stakeholders. We use a range of methods to consult with those who are affected by our company or who have an impact on the way we do business and the feedback we receive determines the actions we take. Our stakeholder groups include players and winners, employees, public interest groups, governmental bodies, local communities, suppliers, shareholders and retailers.
Our stakeholder engagement is underpinned by our governance culture. Camelot’s main board is ultimately accountable for the company’s corporate responsibility strategy – ensuring that it remains a core priority in the commercial decision-making process – and is supported by formal sub-committees, advisory groups and stakeholder panels. The Corporate Responsibility Board is chaired by our Chief Executive, Dianne Thompson, and comprises senior directors from across the business. Reporting directly to the Camelot Board, it sets the overall direction of the strategy and ensures that corporate responsibility is embedded into day-to-day business.
The Advisory Panel on Corporate Responsibility (APCR) is made up of independent specialists with professional expertise in areas of stakeholder concern. Its job is to challenge the company’s approach and provide advice on how to continuously improve. The area of responsible play is, for example, overseen by Sir Robert Worcester, the founder of MORI, who represents the interests of players and winners. Our Chief Executive and another executive director attend each APCR meeting, which is chaired by Camelot’s Deputy Chairman, Gerry Acher.
The internal Player Protection Panel, made up of a cross-section of departmental directors, ensures that the company’s commitments within its strategies to prevent underage and excessive play are supported. We are currently looking to set up an internal Stakeholder Engagement Panel, which will further widen our engagement practices.
The Corporate Responsibility Board, APCR and Player Protection Panel are supported by consultative groups including the Staff Forum and the Retailer Forum. The later is a formal body that meets on a quarterly basis and represents the different trade sectors in our retail estate. Camelot’s recent move to a new 10-year licence involved replacing the entire network of National Lottery terminals, introducing new touch-screen terminals, cutting-edge media screens and printers – connecting over 27,500 retailers to an upgraded gaming system via a brand new communications network. This successful project was the largest, and fastest, lottery upgrade of its kind in the world. The Retailer Forum was a vital channel through which we were able to ensure that all the new in-store equipment was suited to the needs of our retailers.
Best practice
Stakeholder engagement has not only allowed Camelot to build trust and safeguard its reputation but, it has also allowed it to innovate. With the gambling landscape changing rapidly in the UK, academics from the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University, who attend the company’s quarterly Public Interest Group forum, were commissioned by Camelot to develop a tool to assess the structure of a game, to determine whether it was likely to encourage problem play. This has now been made available to the wider gambling and lottery industry. This tool complements an existing tool used by Camelot to assess the potential risk of new games.
In addition, Camelot continues to work hard to set and maintain the highest standards of player protection in the UK market, as well as in the lottery sector worldwide. To achieve this, and to encourage other lotteries to follow best practice, we have been working to develop global standards on player protection.
We have led the development of a global Responsible Gaming Framework through the World Lottery Association (WLA) and European Responsible Gaming Standards through the European Lotteries Association (EL). Dianne Thompson co-chairs the WLA Responsible Gaming Working Group and champions responsible play on the EL Executive Committee.
The new longer licence period has opened up an opportunity for us as an organisation to think more strategically in a number of areas, and to widen stakeholder participation and make it even more meaningful. One such development has been a recent session, facilitated by YouGovStone, of over 50 influential individuals – including business leaders, heads of charities and academics – to generate new ideas about Camelot’s future engagement. The independent, open-ended and creative dialogue from this forum generated a number of common themes which will provide valuable and refreshing ideas about how we can engage with our audiences in the future.
£23 billion and counting…
The most tangible benefit to society of our work can be seen in the amount of money we continue to raise for the Good Causes. To date, The National Lottery has raised over £23 billion, a sum that that has so far been used to fund more than 325,000 individual awards. With an average of 112 grants for every UK postcode area, this amounts to the largest programme of civic and social regeneration since the 19th century – an achievement of which UK National Lottery players can be rightly proud.
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