Participant protection

is at the heart of our strategy to grow The National Lottery responsibly

Participant Protection

is at the heart of our strategy to grow The National Lottery responsibly

Participant Protection is our top priority, and our investment in this field underpins our plans to transform The National Lottery. We want people to enjoy playing National Lottery games, and to do so in a responsible way.

Our strategic focus centres on using technology and data to enable us to support our 33 million customers to understand them and their play behaviour, ensuring The National Lottery remains a trusted and safe environment.

A group of three people smile as they look at something together, likely a winning lottery ticket or game result, in a store setting with various products in the background.

To make sure our games continue to be enjoyed responsibly, we are continually learning and implementing new measures that supports our position of lots of people, playing a little.

Our mission is to grow
The National Lottery responsibly and champion its impact

For all participants*
*Everyone who plays or engages with The National Lottery

We make sure National Lottery games – and our brand and product marketing – don’t appeal to children and young people, and supports responsible play and gifting.

We use our reach to promote the message 'Dream Big Play Small' across The National Lottery website, on in-store materials, on the reverse of Scratchcards and draw game play slips, and on advertisements.

We promote GamCare across a wide range of National Lottery assets, as well as other sources of help and support on our standalone Responsible Play website. We recently expanded this to become a comprehensive resource for responsible play education and it also includes signposting to further support services, including Gamstop and Gamban.

We meet the highest standards of certifications that demonstrate our commitment to Participant Protection – and we're contributing £1.6 million annually to support the research, prevention and treatment of gambling-related harms in the UK.

In addition, we also host a conference focused on Participant Protection, specifically designed for the lottery sector. This once again took place in 2026.

A close-up of a display with various National Lottery scratch cards on offer, featuring prices ranging from £1 to £5, with various themes and prizes shown.

For all National Lottery players

A close-up of a person holding a leaflet titled "A Quick Guide to Responsible Retailing," with colorful lottery balls in the background. The leaflet provides essential information for lottery retailers.

Our robust game design process ensures that the games we create are safe and secure, ensuring they don’t appeal to underage or vulnerable players. All new National Lottery games are firstly put through two independent industry-standard tools to assess their risk levels. They are then reviewed in development by a cross-functional, independent governance group.

For online players, we have rigorous age and identity verification processes, daily play limits, weekly deposit and spend limits, as well as reality check pop-ups, a budget calculator and a self-assessment tool. We've also recently introduced a £50 first-deposit limit for new online customers.

For those who play in retail stores, in October 2024, we introduced a new policy to limit in-store Scratchcard purchases to no more than 10 at a time in a single store visit. We've engaged with our 43,500 retail partners to raise awareness and support for this change and continually monitor compliance through our Operation Guardian mystery shopper programme.

In 2025, National Lottery retailers set a new 93.5% success record in our age-verification checks and the vast majority of retailers were also found to correctly enforcing the new 10-Scratchcard limit, which is highly encouraging for a completely new measure.

Retailers also have access to a feature on their National Lottery terminal, which allows them to print and discreetly give responsible play handouts to players by pressing the ‘Responsible Play’ button on their terminal. If a retailer is concerned about a customer’s play behaviour or if a customer asks a retailer for support, the button allows retailers to subtly print a pink ticket – much like a Lotto, Powerball, EuroMillions, or Set For Life ticket – with details of where support is available.

We've also introduced a QR code on in-store materials for players to instantly access information on support services, as well as put in place enhanced retailer training to prevent underage and excessive play via our digital National Lottery Retail Training Centre.

For potentially vulnerable and at-risk players

We offer a range of self-exclusion options, including short, long or permanent breaks from all games, Instant Win Game specific exclusions and opt outs from marketing communications.

We also have an enhanced escalating interventions programme for players who are identified in our system as potentially at-risk. This triggers emails, pop-ups, phone calls and letters. This programme is proven to positively impact play behaviours among players who receive communications from us.

A webpage displaying information on responsible gambling. It includes options such as setting a reminder for breaks, tracking spending, and tools to manage play responsibly.
A person hands a lottery ticket to another person at a store checkout. The person receiving the ticket holds a completed lottery slip, while a box of Cadbury Milk Tray is visible in the background.

We've strengthened our range of preventative measures, such as with new time-based limits for online Instant Win Games – with an enforced break for continuous instant-win play – and have brought in targeted real-time messages to players who show signs of potentially excessive play.

We've implemented financial vulnerability assessments via Experian based on age, players identified at-risk by behavioural analytics, and for any player who deposits £150 within a 30-day period. Those flagged as at-risk and financially vulnerable are served a shorter-term, more targeted intervention programme with the potential to reach an exclusion more quickly than other cohorts who are flagged as at-risk.

We're also enforcing new, lower maximum limits and restrictions to protect younger players aged 18-24. In addition, we now require that players returning from a significant break are no longer able to play online Instant Win Games and are suppressed from receiving marketing communications.

Supporting every 

player, every step

Our ambition is to set the global industry standard for promoting participant interests, with a strategic focus on knowing and supporting players and those who come into contact with  The National Lottery.