Currently it is legal to organise a lottery at work , in a business or in a residence where a lucky prize winner gets all the proceeds but it is not legal to run a lottery at work where half the proceeds go to the winner and half to charity. There seems to be no clear reason for this.
You can raffle a box of chocolates to raise money for your favourite charity at your birthday party but not at work. Again, this seems ilogical. Lots of businesses run (or would like to run) lotteries, e.g. sweepstakes on sporting events with some of the money going to charity or raffling Christmas gifts given by suppliers – such lotteries are currently ilegal. If they were made legal it would make it easier for people to raise money and be part of 'big society'.
If people or supporter groups are offered a medium sized prize it is difficult for them to maximise the benefit of it as they would have to organise a non-commercial event (and limit ticket sales to people who attend the event which limits the amount they can raise) or they have to register with a local authority and fulfil fairly onerous requirements. If they were allowed to sell a certain number of tickets without being required to register.