The Austrian Spielerhilfe Association (Player-Aid) has uncovered major violations of youth protection at the Austrian Lotteries, a major shareholder of Allwyn, which is due to run “The National Lottery” in the UK from 1st February 2024.
During mystery shopping checks conducted by the Player Protection Association, in which 12 to 14-year-old children were used, it was found that gambling products were able to be purchased in 60% of all cases, despite the Austrian Lotteries having raised the minimum age from 16 to 18 years. This evidence was presented at a press conference on 13th October in Vienna, Austria.
Christoph Holubar, Chairman and Spokesperson for Spielerhilfe (Player-Aid) said: “The protection of minors is still not ensured. In more than half of all test purchases, children were able to purchase Austrian Lottery products, even though they should only be available to those aged 18 and over. The company has big problems to control its retail partners.”
It was also discovered that the products were illegally offered for sale to those aged 16 and over in the federal state of Salzburg, contrary to the new version of the Salzburg Youth Act, which has been in force since March 2019 – the products should only have been available to 18 years and above.
The Austrian Lotteries had ignored this law for 4.5 years and failed to inform its retail partners about the current youth protection regulations, leaving it open to children and young people to purchase gambling products and risking their contractual partners committing administrative offenses.
Holubar said: “The Lotteries ignored the legal situation in Salzburg and illegally sold their products to a target group that was too young through the retail partners. In doing so, the company risked that its contractual partners would continually violate applicable laws and commit administrative offenses.”
Spielerhilfe brought harsh consequences to the table as a means of dealing with the misconduct that had been highlighted, including a further 24 reports of violations of youth protection when selling lottery products in Salzburg on the basis of the Youth Act. The association also suggested a reliability check with the gambling licensing body, the Federal Ministry of Finance.
Holubar concluded: “As a basic requirement, the Austrian Lotteries must ensure proper player protection. The ongoing violations in Salzburg, but also in the other federal states, confirm that this is not guaranteed. The protection of young game participants is an absolute basic requirement that fails here. That is why the responsible authorities should now check whether the Austrian Lotteries actually have the necessary reliability to be able to continue to keep the gambling license.”
Spielerhilfe has suggested that a solution to the youth and player protection problem at the Austrian Lotteries could be resolved through mandatory registration. Instead of addressing the problems, the management team of Austrian Lotteries and Allwyn have not responded to enquiries from Spielerhilfe, instead hiring a UK company to contact journalists and motivate them to delete previously published articles.
Spielerhilfe has called on the Federal Ministry of Finance and other authorities to take action to ensure that the current violations are remedied immediately.
Derick is an experienced reporter having held multiple senior roles for large publishers across Europe. Specialist subjects include small business and financial emerging markets.