Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you for your request for information which we are processing as a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

We aim to deal with all requests promptly and in any event, no later than 20 working days in line with the statutory requirement. In this case 06/06/2022

For information on how we process your personal information please see our freedom of information request specific privacy notice on the Gambling Commission website

If you have any queries about this email, please contact us.

Kind regards

Freedom of Information Team
Gambling Commission
Victoria Square House
Victoria Square
Birmingham B2 4BP

This email and any files transmitted with it are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please return it to the address it came from indicating that you are not the intended recipient and delete it from your system. Do not copy, distribute or take action based on this email. Freedom of Information requests can be submitted either by email ([email address]) or by writing to: FOI request Gambling Commission Victoria Square House Victoria Square Birmingham B2 4BP Please clearly state that your request is under the Freedom of Information Act.

Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you for your request which has been processed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

In your email you have requested a comprehensive list of all unclaimed (over £50,000) Lotto, EuroMillions, Thunderball, Millionaire Maker, and Millionaire raffle prizes between 30th April 2019 and April 30th 2020

I can confirm that the Gambling Commission does hold information falling within the scope of your request.

However, it is noted that Commission has also received requests from you on the subject of unclaimed (over £50,000) Lotto, EuroMillions, Thunderball, Millionaire Maker, and Millionaire raffle prizes on both 23/03/2022 and 08/04/2022, to which we responded in full.

Requests of this nature are time consuming and resource intensive; 365 individual reports must be checked for the appropriate information i.e Prizes over £50,000, the associated date of the draw and the components of the unclaimed prizes. Compiling such information from a large database is subject to human error and thus the response must also be analysed and verified afterwards, which requires the same methodology.

Therefore, the following time has been dedicated to gathering the previous two responses:

• Unclaimed Lottery prizes 30/04/2017 - 30/04/2018 - 15 hours
• Unclaimed Lottery prizes 30/04/2018 - 30/04/2019 - 12 hours

Under the Appropriate Limit and Fees Regulations public authorities are able to aggregate two or more requests where they relate to any extent, to the same or similar information, provided certain conditions are met. These are where the FOI requests:

• are made by one person, or by different persons who appear to the public authority to be acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign;
• are received within any period of 60 consecutive working days;

Under Section 12(4) of the FOIA, provided these conditions are met, the Department is permitted to regard the estimated cost of complying with any of the requests to be the estimated total cost of complying with all of them, for the purpose of considering whether complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.

Whilst we did process your second request which fell only partly within the appropriate time limit; the decision was made to fulfil the request in the interest of transparency and interests of the consumer. However, the third request for this data falls entirely outside of the 18 hour limit, as stipulated within the exemption, consequently we are justified in refusing to provide the information.

We are therefore applying exemption 12(4) to your new request for information about unclaimed (over £50,000) Lotto, EuroMillions, Thunderball, Millionaire Maker, and Millionaire raffle prizes, as they were all received within a 60 day timeframe.

This is because it has been estimated that the cost of complying with your requests aggregated under the Fees Regulations as explained above would exceed the appropriate limit and therefore under the terms of Section 12 of the Act, we are not obliged to comply. For public authorities, such as the Commission, this is set at £450. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving, and extracting the information.

Review of the decision

If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your Freedom of Information request you are entitled to an internal review of our decision. You should write to FOI Team, Gambling Commission, 4th floor, Victoria Square House, Victoria Square, Birmingham, B2 4BP or by reply to this email.

Please note, internal review requests should be made within 40 working days of the initial response. Requests made outside this timeframe will not be processed.

If you are not content with the outcome of our review, you may then apply directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have already exhausted the review procedure provided by the Gambling Commission.

The ICO can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Information Management Team
Gambling Commission
Victoria Square House
Victoria Square
Birmingham B2 4BP

This email and any files transmitted with it are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please return it to the address it came from indicating that you are not the intended recipient and delete it from your system. Do not copy, distribute or take action based on this email. Freedom of Information requests can be submitted either by email ([email address]) or by writing to: FOI request Gambling Commission Victoria Square House Victoria Square Birmingham B2 4BP Please clearly state that your request is under the Freedom of Information Act.