Councillors back plan for community lottery in Daventry district

Members of Daventry District Council’s strategy group gave their backing to plans for the community lottery at their meeting on Thursday evening last week.

The price of each £1 ticket would be split with 40p going to good causes; 10p going into a pot for community grants; 30p to the prize fund; 17p to the lottery operator; and 3p on VAT which the council would claim back and use to fund the licence and advertising.

Players would be able to select which good cause they want their 40p to go to from a list of organisations approved after they apply to the council.

Any ticket without a selected group would have the 40p put into the council’s community grant fund. To win a prize a player has to match the sequence of the digits as they are drawn, either at the beginning or end of their ticket number.

Prizes would be fixed amounts, but would not roll over. Matching six numbers would net a prize of £25,000, down to £5 for matching two numbers.

Labour councillors questioned whether ‘approving’ a good cause may be seen as an endorsement, and how they could prevent gambling addiction.

Setting up the lottery is expected to cost £10,000. Data from the council suggests a ‘conservative’ estimate of the number of tickets sold a year would be 40,000, raising £20,000 for good causes.