The Gambling Commission has sought to tear up Camelot’s lottery ticket – so what now?

Camelot’s National Lottery castle has been breached and the walls are coming down. Probably.

After a hotly contested bidding process, the company that has been running the thing for 28 years has lost its winning ticket to rival Allwyn.

Don’t be fooled, however. This is far from the end of the matter. “We’re now carefully reviewing the Gambling Commission’s evaluation before deciding on our next steps,” said Nigel Railton, the group’s CEO.

Translation: our lawyers will be going over every comma, full stop, dotted i and crossed t involved in this decision.

Count on a vicious PR war too.

Allwyn was previously known as Sazka Entertainment, part of the business empire of Karel Komarek, a Czech billionaire.

Komarek’s holding company also runs Moravske Naftove Doly, which started a gas storage joint venture with Gazprom, although Komarek says he has been seeking to cut these ties. He has publicly criticised Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine in language that won’t win him any friends in the Kremlin and said said he’s in discussions with the Czech government about removing Gazprom from the joint venture.

In addition to the recently anglicised name, Allwyn’s bid has also acquired a starry collection of City heavy-hitters including former Sainsbury’s boss Justin King, Lastminute.com founder Brent Hoberman, and Sir Keith Mills, the loyalty card guru and head of London’s successful Olympic bid.

They will have to work very hard to keep the lottery clear of controversy, which is never very far away from this sort of operation.

Camelot endured plenty of it, including over executive bonuses in the institution’s early days, a pair of bid battles against Sir Richard Branson, and lately questions about profits increasing at a faster rate than what the lottery generates for good causes.

Take a step back from the fun and games – and this story will probably be providing free entertainment for us and expensive legal sport for those involved for months on end – and there is an important point to be made here.

While change can be disruptive, it can do institutions like this one good to swap the people at the controls every now and again. It encourages innovation and new ideas. It stimulates investment. It blows away the complacency that can easily result from a business controlling an asset for too long.

One only need to look at the scandals generated by the water industry – over leaks, sewage dumps into rivers, executive bonuses and rising bills – to see evidence of that in practice. Would these issues be as prevalent if the water operators were running the risk of using control of their assets?

Allwyn is promising to generate almost as much over the ten year period of its contract as Camelot, which has been given reserve status (in other words play nice until the end and you might get another chance), generated over the entirety of its run.

Its idea of cutting the price of a ticket back to £1 – the figure when the lottery started – is smart especially at a time when every pound counts for the customer base.

Whether it’s a good thing to be making it easier for people to gamble when their incomes are being squeezed by a cost of living crisis is a question worth raising.

The lottery has always generated controversy for funding things rich people like when it is mostly those on lower incomes who play it.

But that is a moot point because it isn’t going anywhere. It’s too popular not to mention the fact that too many people rely on it. Sports stars, arts organisations and more besides.

When it comes to the question of sport, the Commission had best mug up on boxing. It’s going to need to have its gloves to hand.

This may prove to be the right decision if Allwyn makes good on its promises and steers clear of controversy. But let’s be clear: it is also a courageous decision on the part of the regulator. Courageous is not a word its leaders will likely see as a compliment.