Lottoland Limited is a company based in Gibraltar. One of its main areas of business is offering online bets on the results of more than 30 different lottery draws.
History
Lottoland was founded by David Rosen in May 2013. Based in Gibraltar, the company originally started with seven employees. Chris Tarrant, who hosted the British quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? has been the brand ambassador for Lottoland UK since 2014. The company has been the name sponsor of Brookvale Oval in Sydney, the home stadium of the National Rugby League team the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles, since the start of 2017. The legally independent Lottoland Foundation, which is based in the German city of Hamburg and is funded by Lottoland, has existed since autumn 2016.
Products
The company provides digital scratchcards, online table games, card games and slot games, whereby customers can win cash and non-cash prizes. Since 2019, the company also offers sports betting.
Lottery betting
To be able to pay out large cash prizes at any time, the company has completed a guaranteed insurance transaction that insures it against high bet payouts.
Licenses and legal background
Lottoland currently has licenses from national supervisory bodies for lotteries in Gibraltar, Italy, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Ireland, Australia — where it has a wagering license — and South Africa, where it has a fixed-odds contingencies license along with B2C and B2B licenses. In April 2018, the Australian government stated that it was considering banning Lottoland. Draft laws passed by the Australian parliament in June 2018 will see "synthetic lotteries" such as Lottoland banned in Australia from 2019, with concerns about companies such as Lottoland hurting family-operated newsagencies, being misleading about prizes and contributing to problem gambling. Lottoland then filed a complaint against the Australian Communications and Media Authority, and the Supreme Court of New South Wales ruled in favour of the company. The lottery companies from the 16 federal states of Germany that have joined together to form the Deutscher Lotto- und Totoblock consider betting on lottery results offered by providers such as Lottoland or Tipp24 to be a violation of the German Inter-State Gambling Treaty.
Figures and structures
Customers and turnover
The company claims a customer base of more than 6 million people from twelve different countries. It generated sales of over 300 million euros in 2016. Lottoland's growth in sales of 820 percent between 2012 and 2015 enabled it to be placed at number 128 in the Financial Times FT1000 report on the fastest-growing companies in Europe.
Acquisitions and investments
Lottoland took over the German lottery portal Lottohelden at the end of 2015. The company had shares in Jumbo Interactive, an online provider of lottery tickets listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, but sold them in July 2017, two months after their purchase. The company has shares in LottoGopher, a provider of lottery tickets from Los Angeles listed on the Canadian Stock Exchange. In May 2018, the company acquired the majority share of Giochi24.
Criticism
The business model of Lottoland has been criticised because it takes away money from good causes and charities: many lotteries such as the British National Lottery give a sizeable percentage of ticket prices to charity, while secondary lotteries such as Lottoland do not.
