Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200
- 219)
THURSDAY 16 NOVEMBER 2000
SIR PETER
FRY, MR
ALAN NICHOLS,
MR ALAN
AUSTIN AND
MR MICHAEL
EDWARDES-EVANS
200. Yes.
(Mr Edwardes-Evans) I do not think any of our members
have ever been able to—We cannot afford £1 million.
We are bound by the 1976 Act with all its limits, with its highest
prize being either £25,000 or ten per cent of proceeds.
201. The National Lottery Commission is not
bound by such regulation.
(Mr Edwardes-Evans) No, because that is under another
act, that is under the National Lottery Act. They have a field
of their own because they can do rollovers, they can do all sorts
of things that we cannot do. We are very prescribed within our
limits. You are not going to get a scratchcard with a £1
million prize, it just would not work, not with us.
Ms Ward
202. Do you think bingo has been affected by
the National Lottery?
(Sir Peter Fry) Undoubtedly. You have seen in our
submission the drop in admissions and, indeed, profitability following
the introduction of the Lottery, and, perhaps more seriously,
the drop after the introduction of scratchcards. Whereas undoubtedly
most people just have a certain amount of money they are going
to spend each week on leisure activities, if you go and buy two
or three Lottery tickets and two or three scratchcards the odds
are you are not going to have the same amount of money to spend
in some other kind of gaming activity.
203. Surely bingo offers something more than
standing at a shop counter and scratching a card?
(Sir Peter Fry) Indeed, it does. We would argue that
we provide an evening's or an afternoon's entertainment to our
customers. We think they get good value for money. It does not
take very long to buy a Lottery ticket.
204. I am due to attend a bingo hall in my constituency
tomorrow night from an invitation and I shall see it for myself.
Can you tell me a little bit more about how you perhaps contribute
towards good causes or charitable organisations from bingo?
(Sir Peter Fry) Yes. We have raised millions of pounds
over the years, and perhaps Mr Nichols might like to expand upon
that. Before he does, I would say that we have just raised nearly
a quarter of a million pounds for Macmillan Nurses, which we hope
to present to them very shortly.
(Mr Nichols) The Bingo Association collected within
bingo clubs for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and bought
a lifeboat which is named Bingo Lifeline. Macmillan has benefited
this year. The Heart Foundation benefited by £250,000. Guide
Dogs for the Blind benefited by £400,000 collected within
bingo halls. Yes, bingo does contribute to good causes.
205. Do you think that people who attend bingo
are the same sort of people who would also buy Lottery tickets
or are they a distinct group?
(Mr Nichols) Absolutely the same people buy. Bingo
players buy Lottery tickets and buy scratchcards. By the very
nature of the numbers it is a very similar game to bingo, so naturally
it appeals very much to bingo players.
(Sir Peter Fry) The study that was organised by Gamcare
produced earlier this year tried to identify people who played
in different kinds of activities and that showed exactly what
Mr Nichols has said.
206. So it is not the financial gains that people
go to bingo for because, unless I have this wrong, you are not
offering the same sort of level of prizes that they might win
on the National Lottery?
(Sir Peter Fry) No. The highest prize that is paid
at the moment is £250,000. We are very hopeful that we will
have one game later on this year which will reach £400,000.
Frankly, it is very difficult to go above that and that is why
we are seeking some legislative changes. Having said that, really
bingo players fall into two categories. There are those who go
in the afternoon and they on the whole are very much more keen
to enjoy the social atmosphere, they go there and they get cheap
food, cheap drink, they can spend a few pounds and they might
win £50. In the evening, of course, you get a slightly different
audience and to them perhaps the prize is more important. To many
of our people it does not matter whether they win £50 or
more, they just like the thrill of winning. Certainly amongst
the younger generation they would like to see a bigger prize that
could compete with some of the prizes that other gambling institutions
can offer.
(Mr Nichols) For the National Game to be able to offer
a £1 million prize, the ticket sales would have to be £10
each, which is a ludicrous price, it is just not viable. That
is why in the Gambling Review Body we are asking for a rollover
facility of stake monies similar to what the Lottery has. This
would then help to generate a prize more in keeping with the Lottery.
We do not say that we disagree with the Lottery but we would like
to be on a level playing field with the Lottery. They have a great
advantage over the rest of the gaming industry.
(Sir Peter Fry) We have to fight for every improvement
and we have now been negotiating for over two years with the Home
Office and the Gaming Board and we are only just getting to the
stage where our Deregulation Order has been published.
Mr Fraser
207. You have talked about why people go to
bingo halls and to a large extent I accept that because it is
a place for people who are perhaps lonely, on their own, to go
and socialise. The whole idea of the community doing something
together is rather nice. However, since 1974 bingo clubs have
been declining as a form of entertainment. Is that not just because
it is dull and actually there are far more exciting things to
do with your leisure time?
(Sir Peter Fry) It is a game that has been around
for hundreds and hundreds of years and it is fairly simple until
you go into the bingo hall and start to play it when it is a bit
more complicated. There has been a decline, we accept that. On
the other hand, if you look at the value of the leisure pound
and how it is going to be used amongst the population, the Henley
Centre gave us an indication that the actual leisure pound was
only going to rise fairly modestly even over the next few years
and over the last few years. What is true is that there is much
more competition for the leisure pound than there ever was before
and that really is the root of the problem. What we are saying
is, okay, some people may think the present kind of game is a
bit boring and we desperately want to enlarge the opportunities
we give to our members, but to do that we have to convince Parliament
to give us those rights that other bodies have got.
208. In America bingo is extremely popular and,
as far as I understand it, you may say otherwise, I thought the
attendance figures were going up and not down, and they have state
lotteries. What are they doing that you are not doing to promote
bingo?
(Sir Peter Fry) I think one of the differences is
that there are not the same number of bingo outlets in comparison
to the population as there are in this country. One of the reasons
that the admissions are going down is because many of the smaller,
more traditional clubs, particularly in towns where perhaps there
is no alternative to the existing bingo hall, are the clubs that
tend to have been very badly hit in recent years. If you look
at the closures you will see that the vast majority of the closures
have been in that sector of the industry. We also know from research
that something like half the people who attend those particular
halls do not transfer elsewhere.
209. Very interesting. You have talked about
a level playing field with the Lottery, but can you compete? Can
you have a level playing field realistically? The Lottery has
prime time Saturday night television, you do not envisage the
bingo in this country having such a platform, do you?
(Sir Peter Fry) No, I do not think we can and we are
not asking that. We do not want to see the Lottery fail, obviously
we want to see it progress. It is only in recent years that we
have been allowed to advertise at all. I think our view is that
£1 million seems to be the threshold when people are interested
and we would only want to aim to be able to offer a £1 million
prize. In fact, we shall be spending £5 million next year
on an advertising campaign to achieve that. We do not want to
out-bid the Lottery, we just do not want to appear to be so far
behind and the prize so low that it is not worth playing bingo.
210. Finally, on the point you made just now
about giving money to Macmillan and the Guide Dogs, I was not
aware of that before you told us today. What sort of PR do you
undertake to make sure we do hear these things?
(Sir Peter Fry) We do usually make sure that it is
broadcast. We obviously do it through the trade press and it depends
on the charity very often what wider publicity we get. We shall
be doing our best to get publicity for this Macmillan appeal.
In this next week I am giving a cheque that was held over from
two or three years ago to Scope for £24,000, which is a little
extra you might say that we have got in reserve, and hopefully
we are going to get some publicity from that.
Chairman
211. I hesitate to disagree with Mr Fraser but
I wonder if you could tell me how widespread is the kind of experience
that I saw when I was at the local Mecca bingo at High Road in
my constituency a few days ago. A warm, brightly lit, attractive
environment with groups of friends and family going out for an
evening, not only playing the games but also having a drink, refreshments,
a cup of tea, generally having a night out, which is very different
indeed from the momentary transaction of buying a Lottery ticket.
(Sir Peter Fry) Exactly.
Chairman: I mean no disagreement with
you on that, Mr Fraser.
Mr Fraser: I accept that but I said that
before I put my question, Chairman, as you will see in the minutes.
Chairman: In that case once again we
are in total accord, except on certain matters.
Mr Maxton
212. Could I turn perhaps to the Lotteries Council.
In the opening paragraph of your submission you say that you are
"a not-for-profit body representing such organisations as
have for decades used lotteries as a means of raising funds for
good causes." Could you perhaps define what you mean by "good
causes"?
(Mr Austin) The Lotteries Council comprises football
clubs, rugby clubs, cricket clubs, charities. There is a great
increase in the hospice movement at the moment into the Lotteries
Council. Any sort of legitimate beneficiary of lotteries under
the Act.
213. You will not mind me saying to you personally,
Mr Austin, that you after all represent Manchester United's Lottery.
(Mr Austin) No, the supporters' lottery.
214. Who raise money for the club, do they,
or do they raise it for other purposes?
(Mr Austin) For ground development and we donate some
to local children's hospitals as well.
215. I think some of us might find that slightly
difficult to put in the same sense that you define the National
Lottery?
(Mr Austin) When it started it was very much a good
cause to the people who started it 40 years ago, because the club
was on its knees and it needed some injection of funding to make
it viable after the Munich disaster, so it was very much so in
the event. We do find it is more difficult now to get people who
want to do it, because they do perceive the need for it changing,
and a number of our remaining agents have been doing it for something
like 40 years. A very, very long time.
216. Do many of them not feel that they already
pay far too much to go and watch football?
(Mr Austin) We at Manchester United's Supporters feel
that we do not pay in excess for the value we receive.
(Mr Edwardes-Evans) I think it would be unfair, because
we have had this point raised before, that one should concentrate
purely on the development association of Manchester United. One
needs to go back to the principles. Section 5 of the Act defines
that no society can be run for commercial profit, and then it
defines the three heads under which our lotteries can be run.
If you take the figures of our membership, between 40 per cent
are charities, including quite a number of hospices now, we have
another 40 per cent or more on sport, not just football, but aiding
football clubs like Lincoln who are struggling to make any progress
at all, and it would be wrong to get the impression that there
are very rich clubs which benefit. There are a few which run development
associations. One has to be very careful of the constitution of
each of those societies, that they accord with the requirements—and
this is checked by the registration at the Gaming Board—they
accord with the principles set out in Section 5, and that the
beneficiaries, as a result of that, are those who fall within
those principles. Thus you cannot have a society, or you should
not have a society, with a constitution which donates all its
profits purely to a football club.
217. You say as a result of the National Lottery
a high percentage of small sports lotteries have actually closed
down. Is that right?
(Mr Austin) That is correct, yes.
218. Is it not, however, true that the amount
of money that is now going into sport, and has gone into sport
over the past seven years, is enormous in comparison to what those
small lotteries could raise? Is that not really what we are about;
we are raising money for sport, it is going into sport, so does
it matter whether it comes from a small lottery or whether it
comes from a National Lottery?
(Mr Austin) It is going into sport in general, it
is not allowed to go into professional sport.
(Mr Edwardes-Evans) Some sports are benefitting quite
considerably from other funds. For example, if you take a local
cricket club which gets no grants from anybody, so we promote
a lottery in our local cricket club, 40 per cent again are for
charities and hospices are a growing exponent of the use of the
lotteries, and so, clearly, you can differentiate. A particular
aspect of the beneficiary scene is that if it is very big or very
popular, at the moment, it may well attract grants of one sort
or another. Overall our scene is of medium to small lottery promoters
who are not benefiting from these large grants that would emanate
from other sporting organisations.
219. I know of sports organisations throughout
the country who have struggled for years to raise money for a
new clubhouse, new playing field, for drainage or other facilities,
and used all sorts of fund raising means to get that, including
lotteries, and did not succeed, but now they have the Lottery,
they apply for grants, they get the grant and the changing rooms
and pavilions are built.
(Mr Edwardes-Evans) When you say "the Lottery",
do you mean the National Lottery? It is a lottery in itself. It
takes a year to prepare the applications. I have done one for
heritage. It takes a year to get all the papers and the history
together, and still you get refused. I am not saying not justifiably
refused, but it takes a hell of a long time, and many, many other
sports and other organisations—heritage organisations and
charitable organisations—cannot afford, or have not got
the expertise, to proceed with applications to these very bureaucratic
bodies that dispense the money.
Mr Maxton: We will be looking at the
bureaucratic nature of the application, but that is a different
matter.
Chairman: Of course, there have been
other sources such as the Foundation of Sports and we will be
hearing about the impact of the Lottery on that.
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