Olympics Lottery Essay Example for Free

Olympics Lottery Essay The issue in which concerns the Active England programme is that the sale of national lottery tickets is gradually declining.  Research by Professor Ian Walker an Economist at the University of Warwick shows that lottery ticket sales are not influenced in anyway by the fact that the lottery supports good causes or the nature of those good causes. The dream of winning large sums of money is the only real driver of ticket sales. However, Professor Walkers research shows otherwise: The figure below shows the history of sales before, during (right in the middle of the graph) and after that controversy for the five main games. He says You dont need to be a trained statistician to see that the effects of rollovers in the lotto games and that there is a slight decline in sales for lotto over the period. So no support here that bad causes matter for sales. See graphs below:  Walker. I, 2004. Good Causes fail to Sell National Lottery Tickets [Online]. Available from: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/NE1000000096306/. Accessed on 09.11.04  Olympics Lottery Fund and the 12% Lottery Duty  The Government were asked to state clearly how it will ensure that money currently raised for good causes, is not diverted to the Olympic bid, resulting in a reduction in the funding of voluntary and community organisations doing vital work throughout the UK. The 12% tax on every National Lottery ticket sold, worth à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½549 million per year or nearly à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½5 billion since 1994, should be split between good causes and lottery players instead of going to the Government.  I do not believe that the public want the lottery to be just another Government tax sparing only 28p from the sale of each Lotto ticket and scratch card for good causes. If the government are serious about reconnecting the lottery with the people then they should give half their annual à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½549 million tax cut to the good causes and half back to the players. Etherington. S, 2003. Olympics Lottery Fund and the 12% Lottery Duty [Online]. Available from: http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/asp/search/ncvo/main.aspx?siteID=1sID=8subSID=73documentID=2210. Accessed on 09.11.04  Measures taken by Sport England  Through this sudden decline in National Lottery sales, the above organisation have had to come up with strategic backup plans for alternate methods of funding and other ways of promoting their campaign and to make sure that they suddenly dont run out of money after promising bright and prosperous things to the nation. Sport England is possibly one of the National Lotterys largest good causes funding receiver and with the sales down by 2% from previous years, Sport England has to be careful with how they spend their money.  It is perhaps more difficult for voluntary and public sector clubs to receive funding through the thorough and detailed application process than before the cutbacks. The club must have a charter mark of high standard, a comprehensive code of conduct and practice for all parties involved and they must be able to prove that the money really will be able to change peoples lives. Whereas a number of years ago, it was rumoured that almost any club could receive funding if they wanted, and the nation saw money go to waste, which can no longer happen. With Sport England under fire by the media brought along a newly appointed chief executive, this created upset. Many peoples jobs were seen as not making enough contribution the cause and were subsequently axed.  Below is a shower of ideas in which Active England can consider to be successful in the future: Conclusion Throughout the portfolio, the key issues in which sport must adapt to have been identified.  With the National Lottery ticket sales slowly increasing again, funding for sports programmes should become readily available if suitably justified.