Green councillor Tess Read has accused Labour of misleading the public over how much money from the Exeter lottery actually goes towards good causes. The Exeter lottery website claims that “A ticket for Exeter Community Lottery costs £1 a week and 60p will go directly to good causes.” The City Council councillor says this is misleading because a proportion of these funds go towards Exeter City Council’s administration costs.
Councillor Tess Read said:
“For months I have been challenging the Council’s claims that 60p of every £1 goes towards good causes, when in fact some of it is swallowed up by the Council itself in admin fees. In the first year only half of the funds raised were allocated to good causes.
“In January a cross party Council committee asked the Councillor responsible for the Lottery to correct the statement which led to some proposed tweaking to the words. But six months later, the Council and the promoters are still making this 60p claim, despite the committee’s request that the Council should be fully transparent with the public about the costs of the lottery.
“Exeter Labour are being economical with the truth and gambling that they can get away with it. Well, we won’t let them. They need to come clean and be open with the public and good causes, so people know exactly how much of the money they spend on lottery tickets actually goes towards helping local worthy causes.”
Previously, Green councillors opposed the way the Exeter lottery was set up, saying the biggest winners would be the company running it as they “cream off a whopping 17% of the value of ticket sales.” They said this was “an unreasonably large chunk of money disappearing into the pockets of a private company.”