UK National Lottery Appoints Director of Performance and Communications
In mid January, the National Lottery Commission said it has created a new office, the director of performance and communications, and has appointed Catherine Forrester to the role.
Forrester's new role will be to gauge the performance of Camelot, the operator of the National Lottery. Mark Harris, the chief executive of the National Lottery Commission, said the new position would help the lottery organization improve its service. Forrester was most recently the performance assurance manager of Elexon, a balancing and settlement code company.
"We are delighted to welcome Catherine to the commission," he said. "Her experience will help us to increase our knowledge of the environment in which the lottery operates, review the performance of the operator in greater depth and to present our findings to a wider audience."
Italy Looking At Electronic, Telephone Lottery Sales
Italy's Under Secretary of the Economy, Manlio Contento, is said to be studying alternative delivery mechanism for the country's lotteries.
Contento said the Italian Lottery's sales are somewhat lower than they should be, with 17.9 million tickets sold in 2001.
Contento is specifically looking at offering lotteries in which players could purchase tickets via electronic means or telephone.
Olympic Lottery for London?
A U.K. government cabinet recently considered holding a lottery to raise money for London's bid to host the 2012 Olympics. Such a lottery would need to be able to raise more than £1 billion to fund such a project, the BBC reports.
Businessman Richard Branson is said to be behind the idea. Detractors say it would take money and attention away from the charities that the National Lottery raises money for.
National Lottery sales are already 5 percent down from last year's total sales of £72 million.
Turkish Lottery Looks for Buyer
The Turkish government said recently that it would like to sell its National Lottery, Milli Piyango, this year.
The country's government is currently ruled by the Turkish Muslim AK Party, and the entity in charge of the lottery is the National Lottery Authority, which is a part of the Office of the Prime Minister.
Under Turkish law, the National Lottery is able to create pari-mutuel games and games of chance and to operate them on its own. The lottery's board has been given the authority to license and inspect all of the lotteries taking place in Turkey.
The Turkish Muslim AK Party is said to be changing legislation to make authorize selling the National Lottery.
The lottery's net profit for 2001 was 86,655 billion Turkish lires.