First monday lottery draw raises £150,000 for five charities
Howard Lake | 8 May 2006 | News
Britain’s new online lottery, monday, held its first draw last night. Despite some website problems, it raised £150,000 for the first five of 70 charities to benefit.
Chariot, the lottery’s operator, said that monday had attracted over 180,000 registered players who had deposited £1.5m, of which a third was played on the first draw.
The first five charities to benefit are Shelter, Born Free, The British Heart Foundation, The Royal National Institute for the Deaf and CLIC Sargent.
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According to Chariot, “significant levels of player activity… led to a slowing up of the site and a corresponding reduction in sales during the day”. The problems were fixed at 8.30pm yesterday evening, and the draw put back from 8pm to midnight to compensate.
Tim Holley, Chairman of Chariot, said: “I would like to apologise to the customers who visted our website on Monday and experienced delays in playing our game before these problems were fixed. I would like to thank them for their patience and look forward to their continued support.”
Ticket sales for this first draw “were at the lower end of the Chariot Board’s expectations”, but “they are pleased with the level of registrations in the two weeks since launch.”
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.