UKGC Withholds Lottery Sales Data
Regulator cites excessive cost to compile daily sales figures for Lotto, EuroMillions, and other games, leaving key spending trends undisclosed.
The UK Gambling Commission has refused to release a decade's worth of daily lottery ticket sales data, following a Freedom of Information request. The regulator stated that compiling the information would be too costly, raising questions about the transparency of National Lottery operations.
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UKGC Refuses to Release Daily Lottery Sales Data
The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has withheld detailed daily sales data for National Lottery games, stating that retrieving the information would exceed cost limits set by law. The decision, revealed in a Freedom of Information (FOI) response dated 16 September 2024, means that specific day-by-day spending on popular games like Lotto, EuroMillions, and their variants remains shielded from public view.
The Request for Transparency
An FOI request was submitted to the Commission asking for a comprehensive breakdown of daily ticket sales for all National Lottery games. The request sought data spanning the last ten years, formatted with a date column and separate totals for each game type, such as Lotto, Lotto HotPicks, and EuroMillions.
This type of data is crucial for consumers and researchers as it would reveal spending patterns, the popularity of different games over time, and the sheer scale of daily expenditure on lottery products in the UK.
Why Was the Information Withheld?
The UKGC confirmed that it holds information falling within the scope of the request. However, it refused to provide the data, citing Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This exemption allows public authorities to refuse requests if the cost of compliance exceeds a set limit of £450, which is equivalent to 18 hours of staff time.
According to the Commission's response, the sales data is not held in an easily accessible format. Instead, it is contained within numerous daily reports. Fulfilling the request would require staff to:
- Manually review a large volume of individual daily reports.
- Identify and extract the relevant sales figures from each report.
- Perform calculations to compile the data into the requested format.
The UKGC estimated this process would take "in excess of 18 hours" and therefore refused the request on cost grounds. The regulator noted that even a refined request would be unlikely to produce accurate daily figures within the time limit.
Significance for Consumers and Regulation
The refusal highlights a significant gap in the public availability of data concerning the National Lottery, one of the largest forms of gambling in the UK. While the UKGC is responsible for regulating the lottery, its admission that daily sales data is not readily compiled raises questions about the accessibility of key performance metrics.
For consumers, this lack of transparency means it is difficult to independently analyse market trends or understand the full scale of lottery spending on a daily basis. The inability to access this fundamental data hinders public scrutiny and a deeper understanding of the National Lottery's commercial operations and its impact on society.