Check your lottery rights

It is no surprise to me that local authorities failed to make the grade when it came to lotteries. The previous lottery legislation introduced society lotteries and local authority lotteries. The latter were to be promoted by councils in order to boost their funds for community services.

They were not a success. They gradually declined until there are now none at all. Society lotteries, however, flourished, in spite of the Thunderball.

One reader has written to me to say that a council officer came into his pub the other day following a "complaint" about his Sunday raffle. He told the licensee that all pub lotteries were illegal and had been for five years.

This is just not true, and I am simply amazed that anyone in a position of authority can make such an outrageously inaccurate statement. Nothing happened five years ago to outlaw pub raffles. But they are now dealt with in a slightly different way under the new Gambling Act.

We used to advise licensees to use the incidental lottery route under the Lotteries and Amusements Act for small scale raffles and draws, say, for a joint of meat on a Sunday. Now, I think it is probably better to use

the facility for what is called a "customer lottery", which is an exempt lottery under the new law.

This allows for a weekly draw conducted among customers of a business who are on the premises at the time. Although the Act suggests that there must be tickets, in fact there can be a list of names, as long as the details of the lottery are declared on it. Chances are not transferable and the maximum prize for any participant is £50 in money or goods. There can be more than one winner up to this amount.

Although there is another exemption for incidental non-commercial lotteries, it may be difficult to run the event on a non-profit basis in a pub. Otherwise, the pub would have to register for a small society lottery through one of its customer teams or another non-commercial group. It is not possible for the pub itself to promote a lottery of this type.

If the local authority concerned is reading this, I should be pleased to advise them further. They obviously need some help.