Lottery legal battle ends: Court backs Gambling Commission

The Court of Appeal has refused permission for The New Lottery Company (TNLC) and its backer Northern & Shell to appeal against a High Court ruling that cleared the Gambling Commission’s handling of the fourth National Lottery licence competition. The decision, made on 30 July 2026, draws a line under litigation that has run since the licence was first contested back in 2022.

What’s actually changed

The dispute centres on the Gambling Commission’s 2022 decision to award the ten-year National Lottery licence to Allwyn UK rather than TNLC, the vehicle set up by media entrepreneur Richard Desmond and his firm Northern & Shell. TNLC, set up by Desmond and his publishing group Northern & Shell, was an unsuccessful bidder during the 2022 tender contest, and subsequently launched a legal challenge claiming over £1.3bn in damages. The High Court dismissed all of those claims in April 2026, finding the claimants had failed to make out any case of manifest error on the part of the Commission and had failed to prove the Commission had breached the Concession Contracts Regulations 2016.

TNLC and Northern & Shell then sought permission to take three grounds to the Court of Appeal. Lord Justice Coulson dismissed all three, concluding that TNLC should not be permitted to raise a new legal argument, particularly one that had been expressly ruled out in the High Court, and that even on a lesser standard of proof its prospects of success would have been “vanishingly small”. The judge also found that TNLC had suffered no losses “in practical terms”.

The Gambling Commission welcomed the outcome. A spokesperson said “This is an important decision for the operation of The National Lottery and one that we welcome,” adding that “The Gambling Commission ran a fair and robust competition to award the Fourth National Lottery Licence and that none of the contested changes to the Licence, in the course of its implementation, were substantial or contrary to the relevant procurement regulations.”

What it means for you

For players, the practical effect is continuity rather than change. With TNLC’s appeal now refused, no challenge to the licence award remains live, meaning Allwyn now operates the lottery without any pending litigation for the first time since it took over. That matters because a decade-long licence under legal challenge creates uncertainty for the regulator’s oversight of a game millions of people play, from scratchcards to Lotto and EuroMillions draws.

The ruling also has financial consequences for the losing side. The failed litigation could leave Desmond facing legal costs exceeding £40 million, after the High Court had already ordered Northern & Shell to pay 75% of the trial’s overall costs. It underlines the scale of risk that comes with contesting a Gambling Commission licensing decision through the courts.

The bigger picture

The National Lottery remains one of the Gambling Commission’s flagship regulatory responsibilities, distinct from its enforcement work against commercial casino and betting operators, but subject to the same expectation of a transparent, defensible process. The Commission puts the total raised for good causes since 1994 at more than £53 billion, across more than 680,000 projects — the sums the regulator says were protected by seeing off this challenge.

With the legal cloud lifted, Allwyn can now press ahead with modernising the lottery’s infrastructure. The operator is pressing ahead with a substantial technology revamp, having promised more than £350 million for modernising systems that have gone without a major upgrade since 2009. For a regulator that has faced criticism over the slow pace of past licensing disputes, a definitive end to the TNLC case allows both the Commission and Allwyn to focus on delivery rather than defending past decisions in court.

Sources

• NEXT.io – Court of Appeal rejects latest UK National Lottery challenge
• UK Gambling Commission – Court of Appeal refuses TNLC permission to appeal
• SBC News – Richard Desmond’s National Lottery claim rejected by Court of Appeal
• Gaming Intelligence – UK Court of Appeal brings an end to lottery licence dispute
• European Gaming – Court of Appeal refuses TNLC National Lottery licence appeal