The Gambling Commission has imposed a £3.15 million financial penalty on National Lottery operator Camelot UK for three failures made on its mobile app.
The first error was made between November 2016 to September 2020 when Camelot UK’s mobile app informed 20,000 players that their winning draw-based ticket were non-winners when they used the device’s QR scanner.
According to the commission, the second mistake involved 22,210 players who were charged for two tickets when purchasing a single draw-based ticket through the app. All the players subject to the fault were refunded and winners on duplicated tickets were rewarded as normal.
The third and final error made by the operator was related to the app sending marketing messages to 65,400 app users identified by Camelot as self-excluded or as showing signs of gambling harm.
Though the marketing messages were distributed, none of the users were permitted by the app to purchase National Lottery products.
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“We are reassured that Camelot has taken steps to make sure that their National Lottery app is fit for purpose,” Gambling Commission chief executive Andrew Rhodes said.
“However, we must caution Camelot that any failings on their duties will be met with consequences.”
“Today’s announcement reinforces that any operator failing to comply with their licence requirements will be investigated by the Commission and we will not hesitate to issue fines if requirements are breached.”
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