Muddle allows children to play lottery
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Children are illegally buying lottery tickets and scratchcards without fear of being caught because of confusion over who is responsible for policing the crime, it emerged yesterday.
A new investigation and prosecution policy is being drawn up by the Home Office, the police, trading standards, and Camelot, the National Lottery operator, in a attempt to solve the problem.
The move follows the police's refusal to use their resources on staking out shops or checking youngsters for buying tickets under the legal limit of 16. Any retailer who knowingly sells a ticket to an under-age player faces a pounds 5,000 fine or up to two years in jail.
The Chief Constables' Council, the main ratifying body of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), is expected to agreed to a three point holding plan today until a new policy can be drawn up.
The council is likely to agree that the police will not actively attempt to catch under-aged offenders but any offences that are reported to them will be passed on to Camelot who will decide what action should be taken against the retailer. The police will continue to deal with the more serious crimes such as fraud, theft and deception.
An Acpo spokesman said: "There seems to be an assumption by the Department of National Heritage that it was up to the police to refer cases of newsagents selling tickets to under aged kids to the Crown Prosecution Service. We believe it should be up to local authority trading standard officers. We are currently discussing a prosecution policy."
The problem of under-aged youngsters was highlighted in November when a 15-year-old boy bought a winning scratchcard. Camelot is taking Prudence Beech to court over the pounds 10,000 her son, Clayton, from Scholar Green, Cheshire, won.
The company wants the High Court to establish that children may not buy Instants for adults. The CPS decided not to take any criminal action after his mother collected his winnings. A spokeswoman for the heritage department said: "Trading standards and the police have to take forward prosecutions of retailers that sell tickets to people under aged. There seems to be some confusion from both sides and attempts are being made to clarify the rules."
n The National Lottery has started a slide towards a "gambling free- for-all" which looks set to end in tears, claims a report released today.
The first National Lottery Yearbook attacks the lottery's Instants for promoting a "hard" gambling culture which was not envisaged when the game was first devised.
And it accuses the boards which share out lottery cash for good causes of giving fewer grants than expected and favouring London and the South- east at the expense of the rest of England.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments