THE NATIONAL LOTTERY’S new in-app feature, which allows users to schedule payments to play the Lotto or the EuroMillions automatically, has been described as “concerning” by problem gambling experts.

The new feature, unveiled last week, will allow players to set up “continuous play” for Lotto and EuroMillions games for up to a year. It means that users can gamble up to three times per week via draws for both lotteries.

However, Professor Colin O’Gara, an addictions psychiatrist specialising in gambling, says the new feature is “increasing the frequency of gambling”.

He said the feature is “concerning” because the increased frequency of gambling via the ‘continuous play’ feature could lead to the “proliferation of gambling and ultimately the normalisation of it”.

Scheduled plays are funded through a user’s in-app wallet; however, if a user does not have sufficient funds in their account to play a Lotto game, the Lotto will automatically charge the debit card associated with the account.

The schedule is automatically cancelled if a user self-excludes themselves from gambling and the Lotto says it “may be cancelled” if the user has not logged into their account in over 90-days.

However, Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould also warned of the potential consequences of the feature.

“Gambling should always be a conscious decision and I would fear that people could sign up to this, forget and discover their bank balance depleted without realising,” he told the Journal.

He added that it would be “much safer” if the state-sponsored lottery did not take funds directly from the customer’s card.

“When the wallet is empty, play stops,” Gould said.

It is understood that the 90-day period, where players must log back into their account, is to make sure people are not automatically charged if they have forgotten about it or are unable to get back into their account for any other reason.

A spokesperson for The National Lottery said “If a player does not have sufficient funds in their National Lottery account, payment will be funded through the bank debit card associated with the player’s account.

“In this scenario, bank charges may apply to scheduled play transactions according to players own bank’s fees,” they added.

Prevalence

A survey from the Health Research Board, which classifies the purchase of lottery tickets as gambling, found the purchase of lottery tickets or scratch cards in-person to be the most common form of gambling in the country.

According to gambling trends in the HRB’s “Results from the 2019–20 National Drug and Alcohol Survey”, published in 2022, an average of 42.4% of the population claimed to participate in the National Lottery within a year of being asked.

While playing Lotto was the most popular form of gambling, the survey found that the population were most likely to spend the least amount of money while playing the lottery, compared to other forms of gambling such as dog or horse racing.

However, a member of faculty of Addiction Psychiatry of College of Psychiatrists of Ireland told The Journal that the “proliferation of any gambling product, and in particular the increase in ease of use and frequency of same, is of concern.”

The member added that the college is “concerned about increased availability and variety” of gambling products due to their addictive potential.

The HRB estimates that there are 12,000 high-risk problem gamblers and 35,000 moderate risk gamblers in Ireland, as of 2019-2020.

“Classically the lottery was associated with a very-low frequency scheduling,” addiction specialist Professor Colin O’Gara said.

“The opposite end of the scale is slot machines, or even more-so online slots which would’ve been dubbed the crack-cocaine of gambling.

“The structural characteristic, which makes things more addictive, is frequency.”

A spokesperson for the National Lottery told The Journal that the new play feature is looked at as a “protection feature”, as it would keep users away from the app for long periods of time and help them budget and control their spending.

Other countries in Europe have similar features, and it’s understood that the feature is designed to help with group buys, such as workplace syndicates.

“This is a significant player protection measure, as it ensures that players are in control of their spending and can enjoy National Lottery games without playing more than they had planned,” the spokesperson added.

However, O’Gara said he “can’t understand” how increasing the frequency of betting can serve as a player protection measure.

Intervention tools

A spokesperson for the Lotto said they have “advanced player monitoring and intervention tools” to protect individual players.

According to the National Lottery’s Responsible Play, nearly 9,000 players were directly contacted by The National Lottery in 2021, through interventions, to warn them about dangerous spending behaviours.

Of this, 1,304 users were excluded from the National Lottery’s digital products and 23 users were suspended for not interacting with the intervention team.

The National Lottery said that the new schedule feature will still follow safeguarding practices by not allowing users to connect a credit card to their app and automatically cancel if the user self-excludes from gambling.

Purchases within the app may not be made from the schedule if the user has reached spending limits, with the maximums of €75 a day or €900 a month and can be decreased by users.

Additionally, the app includes mandatory ID verification for new online players.

However, O’Gara disagreed with the claim that the new feature would protect players says there needs to be “more explanation” as to how a higher frequency of gambling leads to better protection.

Sinn Féin’s Thomas Gould said that “if there is any evidence, or any jurisdictions where this has been shown to reduce harm, then they need to publish that”.

The Regulator of the National Lottery said in a statement to The Journal that similar “kinds of schemes exist in many other jurisdictions” and that the regulator’s role was to “approve that the scheme complied with the specific provisions of the Licence”.

Additionally, the Regulator said that there are “measures in place to protect the interests of players”, including to stop problem gambling.

“The measures in place include, for example, the ability to cancel or amend the arrangement at any time; the options are limited to Lotto and Euro Millions and allow play on one night per week only; the arrangement expires after the three, six or twelve month period selected unless deliberately reconfirmed by the player,” they added.

According to the Regulator, the licence allocated to Premier Lotteries Ireland in 2014, allows the company to introduce “a scheme whereby players could register to play National Lottery draw based games and receive prizes automatically”.

The feature has been approved since December of 2019 but had a delayed launch due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, according to the Regulator. An earlier proposed version of Scheduled Play was rejected by the Regulator in 2017.

The Gambling Regulation Bill, which was announced towards the end of last year, will introduce better protections against developing problem gamblers and introduce more safeguards into the industry.

However, the National Lottery is excluded from this bill as it is only subject to the National Lottery Act 2013.

O’Gara suggested that gambling using a bank account, debit or credit card must be banned.

The ban of credit cards, for online and in-person gambling, is set to be introduced when the regulation bill passes through the Dáil and the National Lottery has already banned the use of them on their app for over 12-months.

O’Gara told The Journal that he thinks the National Lottery should “absolutely” be subject to the new legislation and included with the other gambling companies in the country.