Gambling Commission confirms enforcement action against Allwyn UK
Britain’s gambling regulator confirmed that it is undertaking enforcement action against the operator of the country’s National Lottery, Allwyn, barely two years into the company’s licence tenure.
Allwyn, a multinational company active across Europe and North America, won the tender contest for the UK National Lottery licence back in 2022 and assumed stewardship in February 2024, having acquired former licence holder Camelot UK.
One year and five months after assuming the licence, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) stated that “there have been delays in Allwyn achieving full implementation which was agreed under the licence would be delivered by February 2025”.
“As a result, the Commission has initiated enforcement action, which is ongoing,” the Commission added, as detailed in its annual report and accounts for 2024-2025, published last Monday (21 July).
The Commission added that it is continuing to oversee upgrades to National Lottery systems, its website and mobile app. These objectives are what encompasses ‘full functionality’ under the licence conditions, the Commission states.
To give Allwyn credit, it has been undertaking enhancements of the National Lottery. A widespread upgrade to retail terminals, the National Lottery website and app will occur between 2-4 August, for example, with the end goal of improving and updating the user and retailer experience.
The issue for the UKGC is the timeframe of these upgrades – namely the fact that they are occurring after February 2025, which is when the regulator states Allwyn had agreed to achieve full functionality under the Fourth National Lottery Licence, in place until 2034.
The UKGC’s report summarised the nature of the investigation into Allwyn:
“Allwyn did not deliver full functionality (being all elements of their Application in the competition which they originally committed to deliver by Licence Start Date) by February 2025 as it was contractually required to do and, as a consequence, an enforcement investigation, in line with the 4th National Lottery Licence Regulatory Handbook, was initiated by the Commission and is ongoing.
“This process is separate from the day-to-day regulation of the National Lottery and any decision taken will be done so independently.
The prospect of an investigation into Allwyn over its National Lottery licence is nothing new, however, and has even been acknowledged by the company itself.
In its annual report for 2024, published in May, the firm explained that “after the end of the reporting period a contractual milestone in the enabling agreement was not reached”.
In a statement sent to Lottery Daily today, Allwyn reiterated this: “Due to the delay to the technical cutover, we have missed a contractual milestone in the Enabling Agreement. We continue to work together with the Gambling Commission on the impact of this missed milestone under the terms of the Enabling Agreement. The Gambling Commission is still investigating what, if any, enforcement action might be taken against Allwyn.”
As its licence tenure progresses, Allwyn will likely find itself being judged more around returns to good causes than everything else. This was something previous licence holder Camelot UK was subjected to both before and after the last licence contest.
Allwyn has been ambitious in this area though, setting itself the target of doubling returns to good causes from £30m a week to £60m by the time its 10- year licence concludes.
https://lotterydaily.com/2025/07/30/regulation/national-lottery-ukgc/