LONDON: Britain's lottery operator Camelot beat an Indian rival Sugal & Damani to retain its license to manage the country's National Lottery Tuesday. The National Lottery Commission announced that Camelot, which had run the National Lottery since 1994, will be its preferred bidder for the 2009-2019 license.
Camelot claimed it would be able to have sales of 79 billion pounds over the 10-year third-license period, which will bring in some 22 billion pounds for good causes. The firm had been having sales in the range of 4.6 million pounds to 5 billion pounds-a-year during the second license period.
Sugal & Damani had projected it could have 63.9 billion pounds in sales, ensuring 17.9 billion pounds for good causes.
Camelot and the NLC will have time till the end of August to sign the license deal. The NLC said Sugal & Damani will be a reserve bidder in case the deal with Camelot cannot be finalized.
Dianne Thompson, chief executive of Camelot, said the company has activated the transition plans, which have been prepared as part of the bid.
The two firms had tabled their bids in February and Camelot had publicized about its plans for a world lottery draw and partnerships with companies like eBay and BSkyB. Sugal & Damani, from New Delhi, had been running government-licensed lotteries in India for nearly 30 years.
The NHC said it was not totally impressed by the projections made by Camelot over increasing sales and it was concerned over the research forecasts made by the firm as part of its proposals. It was also not happy over the Indian firm's sales and marketing strategy as well.
Camelot is owned by Royal Mail, De La Rue, Cadbury Schweppes, Thales and Fujitsu. The company will have a major task in taking care of the declining lottery revenues. In 2006, spending on lottery tickets had fallen to 4.91 billion pounds from 5.01 billion pounds in 2005. The money paid out to good causes too declined to 1.24 billion pounds from 1.29 billion pounds. The firm will have to take care of meeting targets of raising funds for the 2012 Olympics -- 2.2 billion pounds earmarked from lotteries.
Camelot is expected to use a technology developed by an Italian firm, Lottomatica. The new technology will see some 27,000 terminals across the country replaced with touch-screen monitors.
Sugal & Damani operates nearly 20,000 online terminals in several states in India and has a turnover of 450 million pounds. The firm has interests in real estate, farming, stock broking and jewelry besides lotteries.
