Statement regarding the operation of the Charitable Lotteries

The Irish Cancer Society relies almost 100 percent on income raised from fundraising and public donations to fund the free services we provide for cancer patients, as well as funding major cancer research projects.

We have been running a lottery since the 1960’s as one of our fundraising projects and in 1990 we started a scratch card fundraising lottery, in conjunction with the Polio Fellowship of Ireland (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Rehab Group). This is the only lottery we are involved in and typical prize money is currently between €10 and €100.

In 1986 the lottery market changed significantly with the arrival of the National Lottery which was given a significant competitive advantage in the market with the introduction of a cap on the prize money issued by all other lotteries. After some time and in an increasingly competitive market, our own lottery began to incur losses. 

These losses continued, and between 2009 and 2013 the cumulative loss was €420,000. During the same period however income from the Charitable Lotteries Scheme, which was set up to shield lotteries from the impact of the cap on prize money and the inevitable loss in income from the competitive advantage awarded to the National Lottery, meant that there was no loss in income to the Society. The funding received by the Society from the Scheme during this same period was €1.2m.

Given the increased losses and with no prospect of recovery, in November last the Society and its partner made a decision to close the lottery. This will happen in the next few months and will involve the loss of two jobs.

The funds received from the scheme have been published as part of our annual accounts which are publicly available here. The Irish Cancer Society is a signatory to the voluntary codes of practice in fundraising and as a company, is subject to the full rigours of company law.