Lottoland Limited is a company based in

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. One of its main areas of business is offering online bets on the results of more than 30 lottery draws.

History

Lottoland was founded by David Rosen in May 2013. Based in Gibraltar, the company originally started with seven employees.

Chris Tarrant Christopher John Tarrant, (born 10 October 1946) is an English broadcaster, television personality and former radio DJ. He presented the ITV children's television show '' Tiswas'' from 1974 to 1981, and the game show '' Who Wants to Be a Mil ...

, who hosted the British quiz show

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'' (often informally called ''Millionaire'') is an international television game show franchise of British origin, created by David Briggs, Mike Whitehill and Steven Knight. In its format, currently owned and l ...

has been the brand ambassador for ''Lottoland UK'' since 2014. The company has been the name sponsor of

Brookvale Oval Brookvale Oval (also known by the commercial sponsorship name 4 Pines Park) is a sporting ground located within Brookvale Park at Brookvale, New South Wales, Australia. The ground is owned by Northern Beaches Council and is primarily used by th ...

in Sydney, the home stadium of the

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

team the

Manly Warringah Sea Eagles The Manly Warringah Sea Eagles are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Sydney's Northern Beaches. The team colours are maroon and white, while their namesake and logo is the sea eagle. They compete in Australia's premier rugb ...

, since the start of 2017 . The legally independent ''Lottoland Foundation'', which is based in the German city of Hamburg and is funded by Lottoland, has existed since autumn 2016.Jan Willmroth: ''Sechs Falsche''. In: ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (Print), 15–17 April 2017.

Products

The company provides digital

scratchcard A scratchcard (also called a scratch off, scratch ticket, scratcher, scratchum, scratch-it, scratch game, scratch-and-win, instant game, instant lottery, scratchie, lot scrots, or scritchies) is a card designed for competitions, often made of ...

s, online table games,

card game A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as poker). A small number of card ga ...

s and slot games, whereby customers can win cash and non-cash prizes. Since 2019, the company also offers

sports betting Sports betting is the activity of predicting sports results and placing a wager on the outcome. The frequency of sports bet upon varies by culture, with the vast majority of bets being placed on association football, American football, basket ...

Lottery betting

To be able to pay out large cash prizes at any time, the company has completed a guaranteed insurance transaction (

Insurance-Linked Securities (ILS) Insurance-linked securities (ILS) are broadly defined as financial instruments whose values are driven by insurance loss events. Those such instruments that are linked to property losses due to natural catastrophes represent a unique asset class, ...

) that insures it against high bet payouts.''Investoren greifen bei Lottorisiken zu. Verbriefung mit Volumen von 100 Mill. Euro''. In:

Börsen-Zeitung The ''Börsen-Zeitung'' is the main daily newspaper in Germany exclusively focused on the financial markets. The ''Börsen-Zeitungs headquarters is in Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the ...

, 24 April 2015.Albrecht Scheuermann: ''Der Jackpot ist versichert''. In: Göttinger Tageblatt, 19 August 2016. Albrecht Scheuermann: ''Wenn der Jackpot versichert ist''. In:

Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung ''Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung'' (abbreviated HAZ) is a German newspaper with a circulation of 158,000 (as of 2009) and a widespread resonance all over Germany. It is distributed in Hanover and in all Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: ...

, 19 August 2016.

Licenses and legal background

Lottoland currently has licenses from national supervisory bodies for lotteries in Gibraltar, Italy, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia — where it has a wagering license —

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

, where it has a fixed-odds contingencies license along with B2C and B2B licenses — and Sweden, where it has an online gambling and betting license. In April 2018, the

Australian government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government ...

stated that it was considering banning Lottoland. Draft laws passed by the

Australian parliament The Parliament of Australia (officially the Federal Parliament, also called the Commonwealth Parliament) is the legislative branch of the government of Australia. It consists of three elements: the monarch (represented by the governor-g ...

in June 2018 will see "synthetic lotteries" such as Lottoland banned in Australia from 2019, with concerns about companies such as Lottoland hurting family-operated newsagencies, being misleading about prizes and contributing to

problem gambling Problem gambling or ludomania is repetitive gambling behavior despite harm and negative consequences. Problem gambling may be diagnosed as a mental disorder according to ''DSM-5'' if certain diagnostic criteria are met. Pathological gambling is ...

. Lottoland then filed a complaint against the Australian Communications and Media Authority, and the

Supreme Court of New South Wales The Supreme Court of New South Wales is the highest state court of the Australian State of New South Wales. It has unlimited jurisdiction within the state in civil matters, and hears the most serious criminal matters. Whilst the Supreme Court ...

ruled in favour of the company. The lottery companies from the 16

federal states A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governi ...

of Germany that have joined together to form the ''Deutscher Lotto- und Totoblock'' consider betting on lottery results offered by providers such as Lottoland or ''Tipp24'' to be a violation of the German Inter-State Gambling Treaty (''Glücksspielstaatsvertrag''). The Swedish Gambling Authority fined United Lottery Solutions in 2019, which owns lottoland.se, for providing the lottery Eurojackpot, which was not covered by their Swedish gambling license. In 2020 Lottoland lost its first appeal. In September 2021, The UK gambling commission (UKGC) announced they would be taking regulatory action against Lottoland. The company was fined £760,000 ($1 million) by the UKGC and cited the reasoning behind the fine as social responsibility and anti-money laundering rule breaches between October 2019 and November 2020.

Figures and structures

Customers and turnover

The company claims a customer base of more than 6 million people from twelve countries (as of June 2017). It generated sales of over 300 million euros in 2016.''Zulauf für Lottoland. Glücksspiel-Wettanbieter wächst deutlich''. In: ''Die Tabak Zeitung'', 28 April 2017. Lottoland's growth in sales of 820 percent between 2012 and 2015 enabled it to be placed at number 128 in the

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Ni ...

FT1000 report on the fastest-growing companies in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

Acquisitions and investments

Lottoland took over the German lottery portal ''Lottohelden'' at the end of 2015. The company had shares in Jumbo Interactive, an online provider of lottery tickets

listed Listed may refer to: * Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm * Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic * Endangered species in biology * Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...

on the Australian Securities Exchange, but sold them in July 2017, two months after their purchase. The company has shares in ''LottoGopher'', a provider of lottery tickets from Los Angeles listed on the

Canadian Stock Exchange The Montreal Exchange (MX; french: Bourse de Montréal), formerly the Montreal Stock Exchange (MSE), is a derivatives exchange, located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada that trades futures contracts and options on equities, indices, currencies, ETFs, ...

. In May 2018, the company acquired the majority share of ''Giochi24''.

Criticism

The business model of Lottoland has been criticised because it takes away money from good causes and charities: many lotteries such as the British National Lottery give a sizeable percentage of ticket prices to charity, while secondary lotteries such as Lottoland do not.

References

External links

Official website
{{Gambling 2013 establishments in Gibraltar Online gambling companies of Gibraltar