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
lottery draws.[8][9]
History
Lottoland was founded by David Rosen[10] in May 2013.[11] Based in Gibraltar, the company originally started with seven employees.[12]
The legally independent Lottoland Foundation, which is based in the German city of Hamburg and is funded by Lottoland, has existed since autumn 2016.[15]
To be able to pay out large cash prizes at any time, the company has completed a guaranteed insurance transaction (
Insurance-Linked Securities (ILS)) that insures it against high bet payouts.[18][19][20][21]
Licenses and legal background
Lottoland currently has licenses from national supervisory bodies for lotteries[2] in Gibraltar, Italy,[4] the United Kingdom,[5] Ireland,[3] Australia — where it has a wagering license[1] —
South Africa, where it has a fixed-odds contingencies license along with B2C and B2B licenses[6] — and Sweden, where it has an online gambling and betting license.[22]
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 (Glücksspielstaatsvertrag).[26][27][28]
In 2019, the
Swedish Gambling Authority fined United Lottery Solutions, an owner of lottoland.se, for providing the lottery Eurojackpot, which was not covered by Swedish gambling license. In 2020 Lottoland lost its first appeal.[29]
In September 2021, The UK gambling commission (UKGC) announced they would be taking regulatory action against Lottoland. The company was fined £760,000 ($1 million) by the UKGC and cited the reasoning behind the fine as social responsibility and anti-money laundering rule breaches between October 2019 and November 2020.[30]
Figures and structures
Customers and turnover
The company claims a customer base of more than 6 million people from twelve countries (as of June 2017).[31] It generated sales of over 300 million euros in 2016.[32][33]
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.[34]
Acquisitions and investments
Lottoland took over the German lottery portal Lottohelden at the end of 2015.[35] The company had shares in
Jumbo Interactive, an online provider of lottery tickets
listed on the
Australian Securities Exchange,[36] but sold them in July 2017, two months after their purchase.[37] The company has shares in LottoGopher, a provider of lottery tickets from Los Angeles listed on the
Canadian Stock Exchange.[38]
In May 2018, the company acquired the majority share of Giochi24.[39]
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.
It's also noted that Lottoland misleads consumers about the availability of customer support, often taking over six weeks for a reply to support tickets.[3][40]