Gambling Commission costs double to £28.8m amid Richard Desmond’s £1.3bn Lottery lawsuit

The cost of the administration of the Gambling regulator in the United Kingdom has doubled last year, as it is preparing for a high -risk legal confrontation due to the granting of a national lottery license.

The recently presented accounts show that the costs of the Gambling Committee related to the national share increased to 28.8 million pounds per year to March, an increase of 14.4 million pounds in the previous year. The increase reflects the escalating legal fees, as the organizer is preparing to defend itself in exchange for a demand of 1.3 billion pounds from the Qatari publishing Qatari Richard Desmond.

Desmond, 73, is sued the committee after his company failed to try to win the license of the jam for a period of 10 years, which instead was granted to ALLWYN, Czech billionaire Carrell Kumrik. The case is scheduled to start in the Supreme Court in October.

The work of the committee is partially funded by the National Lottery Distribution Fund (NLDF), which directs the money collected by ticket sales for good reasons. However, given that the regulator’s litigation costs – up to 13.4 million pounds last year from 400,000 pounds previously – critics warn that funds allocated to charities and community projects are dried in the courtroom.

Desmond also submitted a separate claim of 70 million pounds, on the pretext that the money allocated for good reasons under the previous operator, Camelot, has been “support” that must be compensated for the Allwyn. If you either succeed, it is possible that the damage is extracted from NLDF.

The Gambling Committee insisted that it runs a “fair and strong” competition and said that its evaluation was legal. Meanwhile, allwyn has faced difficulties since the lottery took over early last year. The upgrade of the main information technology system, which is decisive for its promise of more than the double charitable donations to 38 billion pounds, was suffering from delay, which prompted the organization by the organizer.

Despite the disturbances, national lottery sales increased last year thanks to the euromillions award, including a prize of 250 million euros (217 million pounds) in March. This helped compensate for the decrease in Loto and Scratchcard sales during the cost of the living crisis. In general, the money collected for good reasons increased by 100 million pounds to 1.8 billion pounds.