Channel Islands Lottery

The Channel Island Lottery is the State lottery in the Channel Islands run jointly by the States of Jersey and States of Guernsey. The first draw was held in 1975.[1]

The Channel Island Lottery
Selling 2011 Christmas draw tickets at a kiosk in Saint Helier, Jersey

History

The Channel Islands Lottery was founded in 1975 with the merger of the Jersey Lottery and the Guernsey Lottery.[2] The Jersey Lottery was established in 1966[3] and the Guernsey Lottery in 1971. The game is the oldest lottery in the British Isles, established before those in Ireland (1987) and the United Kingdom (1994).

Jersey's share of the profits from the lottery were initially used to finance the transformation of Fort Regent into a sports and entertainment complex. On the completion of that project, the States of Jersey agreed that the Jersey part of the profits from the Channel Islands Lottery should be applied to charitable purposes, through the Association of Jersey Charities.[4]

A scratchcard instant game was introduced to revitalise the traditional draw in 1997.[5]

On 29 June 2012, a summer draw was launched with a million £2 lottery tickets going on sale. The main prize, had all tickets being sold, would have been £1 million, with a further £300,000 in smaller prizes.[6] However ticket sales were much lower than anticipated, and the main prize was only £150,000, with £300,000 in smaller prizes.[7] The summer lottery was cancelled in 2013.[8]

Proposals to replace with the United Kingdom National Lottery

Since the launch of the National Lottery in the United Kingdom in 1994 there have been proposals to replace the Channel Islands Lottery by making United Kingdom lottery ticket sales available in the Channel Islands. The Government of Jersey favours this as this would triple the amount given to good causes.[9] However some residents feel this would lose them their independence. Foreign tickets are not currently sold in the Islands. The Islands are not eligible for Good Causes Funding,[10] although the UK National Lottery Act 2006 provides for the eventuality that the Channel Islands may participate.[11]

The UK's other Crown Dependency, the Isle of Man participates in the UK National Lottery.

Games

The main game is a scratchcard game where the maximum prize is £20,000 which replaced draw based games in 2004. There is also the Christmas Super Draw which is part scratchcard, part draw based. The jackpot for the 2016 Christmas Draw was £1,120,220.[12]

References
  1. Channel Islands Lottery Archived August 13, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  2. "Gambling (Channel Islands Lottery) (Jersey) Regulations 1975". Archived from the original on 2 February 2016. Retrieved 30 October 2011.
  3. Syvret & Stevens (1998). Balleine's History of Jersey. Jersey: Phillimore. ISBN 1-86077-065-7.
  4. "States of Jersey Official Report 18 November 2009". Retrieved 30 October 2011.
  5. "Gambling (Channel Islands Lottery) (Jersey) Order 1997". Archived from the original on 2 February 2016. Retrieved 30 October 2011.
  6. "Channel Islands Lottery could offer £1m top prize". Bbc.co.uk. 28 June 2012. Retrieved 23 March 2013.
  7. "Channel Islands £1m summer lottery tickets drawn". BBC. 9 August 2012. Retrieved 15 November 2012.
  8. "BBC News - Channel Islands Summer Lottery ditched after poor sales". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 23 March 2013.
  9. "Lottery could be switched to UK". BBC News. 23 March 2007. Retrieved 23 March 2013.
  10. Memorandum to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee Post Legislative Assessment of the National Lottery Act 2006 Archived April 15, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, 2011: "This provision of the Act allows the Big Lottery Fund to distribute National Lottery proceeds to the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. This power has been implemented in respect of the Isle of Man, where National Lottery tickets can now be purchased, but has yet to be enacted in the Channel Islands."
  11. UK National Lottery Act 2006 - Explanatory notes: "Subsection (1) provides that a body may distribute money to meet expenditure which relates to the Isle of Man or any of the Channel Islands. In particular, it is intended that the Big Lottery Fund will distribute money to these islands so long as satisfactory arrangements have been made for National Lottery games to be played there (as they have already in the Isle of Man)"
  12. "Channel Islands Lottery results". Retrieved 18 December 2017.
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