How to submit a statutory statement (return) for a small society lottery

Duty to submit a statutory statement (return)

If you are a charity, social club or other non-commercial society you must first register your society to run small lotteries.

After each lottery, you must send us a statutory statement (also known as a return) within three months of the lottery draw.

Each statement must give details of:

• The arrangements for the lottery (including the dates on which tickets were available, the dates of any draw and the arrangements for prizes, including any rollover)
• How much money was raised
• The money used for providing prizes (including prizes for any rollover)
• The cost of organising the lottery
• The money given to the promoting society's purpose
• Whether any expenses were paid other than by deduction from the proceeds of the lottery. If they were, the amount and the sources from which they were paid

Two members of the society must sign the statutory statement. They must have written permission from the society or its governing body to do so, and this permission should be submitted with the return.

Offences

It is an offence to:

• Fail to make and file a statement
• Supply false or misleading information.

We may notify the Gambling Commission about an incorrectly completed and/or late statutory statement and this could result in the cancellation of your registration.

Checking statutory statements

We will check the statutory statement to make sure:

• It is valid and that we have all the information we require
• The lottery was conducted lawfully

If we find a problem with your statutory statement

If there is a problem with your statutory statement, we may ask you for more information - or return the statement to you for further work.

If we think you have exceeded the small society lottery limits or that deductions for costs, prizes and other expenses are too high, we will notify the Gambling Commission.  The Commission may then investigate further, and may contact you directly. We will generally tell you if we give notice to the Gambling Commission.

If we believe that a society's registration is no longer valid or that information it supplied to us is wrong or misleading, we may cancel your registration. Before we do that, we will ask you to explain. We may give your explanation to the Head of Environmental Health and Housing to make a decision.

In some cases, the Head of Environmental Health and Housing may pass on the issue to our Licensing Sub-Committee. If this happens we will hold a hearing and a panel of councillors will make the decision. We will tell you about any hearings.

Timescale for checking a statutory statement

We aim to check your statutory statement within ten working days of receiving it. At busy times it may take us longer.

If we are thinking about cancelling your registration, we aim to make a decision within 56 days. This is not always possible but we will try to let you know how it is progressing.

Register of statutory statements

We maintain a register of statutory statements (returns) for small lotteries.