Crowdsourcing changes to UK law
Ban CREDIT card use for all types of gambling sites, allowing only debit card registration.
Ban CREDIT card use for all types of gambling sites, allowing only debit card registration.
Allow PTAs to continue to distribute raffle tickets for sale by parents using children’s book bags.
Allow PTAs to continue to distribute raffle tickets for sale by parents using children’s book bags.
The law as it stands
At the moment, there is a clear law regarding who can run a public lottery (a very small number of exceptional groups) and who can run a public competiion (anyone).
[http://lotteriescouncil.org.uk/public/gamblingact/law.shtml]
The flaw
The problem is, there is a glaring hole in this law – the definition of a lottery.
"…the prizes are allocated by a process which relies wholly on chance."
The current result
So to prevent falling foul of the law and running a lottery (instead of a competition), organisations must insert some "skill element" into their prize draws. On TV, this results in the construction of multiple choice questions, such as:
"Which of the following is a colour?"
The obvious problem is that "skill" is unquantifiable, so an organisation can ask any question regardless of how hard it is and still claim they are running a competition and not a lottery.
So we are left with this ridiculous situation (which we have all taken for granted for years) where all these lotteries have these daft questions on them to disguise them as competitions.
The law as it stands
At the moment, there is a clear law regarding who can run a public lottery (a very small number of exceptional groups) and who can run a public competiion (anyone).
[http://lotteriescouncil.org.uk/public/gamblingact/law.shtml]
The flaw
The problem is, there is a glaring hole in this law – the definition of a lottery.
"…the prizes are allocated by a process which relies wholly on chance."
The current result
So to prevent falling foul of the law and running a lottery (instead of a competition), organisations must insert some "skill element" into their prize draws. On TV, this results in the construction of multiple choice questions, such as:
"Which of the following is a colour?"
The obvious problem is that "skill" is unquantifiable, so an organisation can ask any question regardless of how hard it is and still claim they are running a competition and not a lottery.
So we are left with this ridiculous situation (which we have all taken for granted for years) where all these lotteries have these daft questions on them to disguise them as competitions.