Media group to launch commercial lottery
27 September 2011 Last updated at 12:36
A new commercial lottery intended to raise £50m a year to tackle health inequalities will be launched later.
The Health Lottery, run by Northern & Shell media company which owns Express newspapers and Channel 5, will offer a £100,000 top prize.
It will donate over 20p per £1 ticket to charity, compared with 28p for every National Lottery ticket.
The charitable donation has been described as a “pretty disgraceful development” by a charity chief.
Sir Stephen Bubb, of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, said Northern & Shell owner Richard Desmond was “profiteering on the back of charities”.
“The National Lottery gives 28p, if he cares about health charities he should match that figure or he should close it down,” he told the BBC.
“I suspect this is more about making profits for this new venture than it is to give money to health charities.”
He said ticket sales for the National Lottery would fall and charities generally would get less money if Mr Desmond’s new lottery competed with it.
Health Lottery chief executive Martin Hall said the game would ultimately pay out a greater proportion of income in prizes than the National Lottery does.
He said at least £50m would go to health-related causes, which could include respite care and counselling for young carers and specialist nurses for conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Tickets will go on sale on Thursday, backed by a £20m publicity campaign. The draw will be shown in adverts on Saturday evenings on ITV and Channel 5.
Five matching numbers will win players £100,000, four matching numbers wins £500, while three will collect £50.
More than 40,000 retailers have signed up to sell tickets, which is believed to be about 12,000 more than the National Lottery has.
