National Lottery operator donated £20,000 to Tories after profitable licence battle
A Czech billionaire’s playing agency donated £20,000 to the Tories only a 12 months after profitable a controversial battle to run the UK’s National Lottery.
The Gambling Commission, a authorities physique, handed the licence to run the Lottery to Allwyn, Europe’s largest lottery operator, in March 2022. The bitter competitors had been affected by months of authorized wrangling – however Allwyn will lastly take over the licence from subsequent month.
The agency, beforehand generally known as Sazka earlier than rebranding through the bidding course of, pledged to double charitable donations to £38billion over the following decade and to slash ticket costs to £1. And in November final 12 months, they made a donation price £20,000 to the 1922 Committee, the Conservative Party ’s parliamentary affiliation.
Allwyn is owned by 53-year-old oil tycoon Karel Komarek, who has beforehand confronted questions over his hyperlinks with Russian-state power large Gazprom.
His firm MND launched a three way partnership with Gazprom in 2016 to construct an underground fuel storage facility within the Czech Republic. But Mr Komarek has since publicly condemned Russia ’s invasion of Ukraine. And in November, MND purchased out most of Gazprom’s stake within the enterprise – which Russia had stopped utilizing for fuel storage at across the time of the invasion.
After the choice was made at hand the lottery licence to Allwyn, earlier holders Camelot launched authorized proceedings claiming the Commission had received the choice “badly wrong” – holding the handover course of up for months. After profitable the licence, Allwyn purchased Camelot for £100 million.
A spokesperson for the Departure for Culture, Media and Sport stated: “The Gambling Commission ran an open, fair and rigorous competition, independently of government, for the National Lottery licence. DCMS Ministers were not involved in the licence decision. Allwyn has a strong track record of transforming lotteries and we are delighted they have chosen to bring their expertise and ambition to the UK.”
A Conservative Party spokesperson stated: “Donations to the Conservative Party are properly and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission, openly published by them, and comply fully with the law.”
