ANP revelers during a neighborhood party in Heemskerk, organized by the Postcode Lottery in January this year.
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 06:34
Nik Wouters
editor Economics
Charlotte Klein
editor Economics
Nik Wouters
editor Economics
Charlotte Klein
editor Economics
The two largest Dutch charity lotteries, the Postcode Lottery and the Friends Lottery, have given a smaller part of their proceeds to charities in recent years. Since 2020, more than 100 million euros have been lost to charities.
According to the law, the lotteries are not doing anything wrong: in 2020, the percentage that lotteries are obliged to donate to charities was reduced from 50 to 40 percent, partly at the request of the companies themselves. They pointed out that government lotteries such as the Staatsloterij must donate a much lower percentage: less than 20 percent.
Previously, lotteries promised that the proceeds for charities would remain at least at the same level. In a response, they now point out that regular donations to charities are unchanged or higher, while fewer annual bonuses are paid out. In other words: the charities’ multi-year plans can continue as usual.
More turnover, less payment
The lottery companies previously said that by reducing the mandatory contribution, more money would eventually go to charities. With more money in the pot, the thinking went, more people would want to buy a lottery ticket. And at the bottom line, at least as much money is received by charities.
In practice this is not yet noticeable. The lotteries, with millions of participants, have a higher turnover every year, but the contributions have fallen in 2020 and 2021. There was a slight increase last year, but less money is still going to charities than in 2019.
The lotteries donate more than 470 million euros to charities every year.
NOS
Compared to 2019 – before the law change – lotteries donated 140 million euros less to charities over the past three years.
If you apply the old percentage of 50 percent to the tickets sold in recent years, charities have lost even 232 million in three years.
Dream Fund
So it is the one-off donations that have been cut, such as the Dream Fund, which the Postcode Lottery awards annually. In 2019, the selected charities received almost 17 million euros from that fund. Last year that was 12 million.
The Charity Platform, which discusses gambling policy on behalf of charities, says that the decline in donations was anticipated and is counting on contributions to increase in the coming years.
The percentage donated to charities has already been reduced once before. In 2004 it went from 60 to 50 percent, and in 2020 from 50 to 40.
According to the lotteries, this is to ensure higher prize money, so that more people are inclined to buy a ticket. It does indeed appear to work psychologically in such a way that people are more likely to buy a lottery ticket if the pot is higher, says professor of sports and law Marjan Olfers, who conducts research into the gambling sector. But according to her, that is not the only reason why this has been implemented: “The gambling lobby is terribly strong, especially that of the Postcode Lottery. They can make do with the money that lotteries raise for charities, and of course no one is against charities.”
It previously emerged that lotteries and charities have lobbied to prevent a mandatory warning text in advertisements. The letters to the ministry exaggerate the importance of lotteries for charities. Lotteries made an annual contribution of 800 million euros, but this included how much gambling tax ends up in the state treasury.
The Charity Platform has now adjusted the amount on the website to 600 million euros.
The fact that charities are dependent on lotteries makes critical research difficult, says Olfers. As a government or researcher, you “never only have to deal with the lotteries, but also with their supporters: the charities. And those supporters of course support the lottery, because they depend on their donations.”
Charity lotteries have been spending more money on costs since the law was amended, almost 30 million more annually. According to the lotteries, these extra costs are due to “visibility and innovation due to the opening of the online gambling market”.
Accountability
The turnover of the lotteries and the contributions to charities have been taken from the annual reports of the two largest lotteries: the National Postcode Lottery and Friends Lottery (formerly BankGiro Lottery and Sponsor Bingo Lottery).
In some years, the lotteries paid more than the statutory percentage. This happened in the ‘transition years’ after 2004 and after 2020.
2023-11-03 05:34:07
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