Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if she will take steps to ban the National Lottery from using its brand to promote online instant-win games that may lead to problem gambling.

The National Lottery offers a range of products including draw-based games, interactive instant win games and scratchcards.

All games, including instant win games, are licensed by the Gambling Commission, either at a category or individual game level. The Gambling Commission has three statutory duties with regard to the National Lottery (shared with DCMS) - to ensure the National Lottery is run with due propriety, to protect the interests of players, and subject to this, to maximise returns to good causes.

In determining whether to licence, the Gambling Commission will consider the potential impact on players and the player protection mechanisms which are in place to protect players from harm.

Further information can be found within the National Lottery Consumer Protection Strategy. This strategy means that the Gambling Commission can be confident that National Lottery games have a very low risk of causing harm to players.

Evidence from the latest (2018) Health Survey for England shows that National Lottery games were associated with the lowest rates of problem gambling of all gambling products considered. Problem gambling rates for National Lottery draw-based games were 0.9% while the figure for scratchcards was 1.4%. By comparison, the problem gambling rates for other activities covered by the survey ranged from 2.7% to 12.7%.

Whenever the Gambling Commission have had concerns they have been quick to take action. In 2020, the Gambling Commission commissioned research to better understand the players of Interactive Instant Win Games. The research found an association between players of Interactive Instant Win Games at the £10 price point and some problem gambling behaviours. As a result of this research, the operator withdrew all £10 IIWGs from circulation.