Current situation

Almost every country in the EU has small-scale charity lotteries, frequently organised by clubs and associations themselves. Unfortunately, charity lotteries on a national scale are often not able to operate because:

 States tend to protect national lotteries as national monopolies;
 Domestic legislation tends to prevent charity lotteries from “competing” with national lotteries;

The degree of discrimination is very variable across the EU and a level playing field is required. Only the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, Ireland, Spain and Germany allow - and do have - nationwide charity lotteries. That’s only 6 out of 27 Member States, whereas almost all Member States have state lotteries.

This is very unfortunate as research (see the report Better chances for charity lotteries, at the publications section of this website) has shown that privately run charity lotteries and state lotteries can perfectly co-exist, without decreasing revenues for the state treasury.

Even though some state lotteries earmark a (small) part of the revenues for fields like culture or sports, ACLEU members do not consider these state lotteries to be charity lotteries, as the lottery revenues can be used to replace government subsidies. The funds generated by charity lotteries should be additional to, and definitely not replacing, subsidies for NGOs.

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