Electronic Drawing Systems

Formal approval of electronic drawing systems is no longer required by the NSW & SA lottery departments, however SA requires that an electronic system includes a random number generator.

Further, formal approval of a random number generator system must be obtained from the QLD lottery department if the promotion is exclusive to QLD and/or the draw is being conducted in QLD. In any case, this requirement is not a widely known one and appears to not be strictly enforced by the QLD lottery department, indicating that the risk of proceeding without approval would be low.

Scrutinising of Draws

In certain cases, the NSW and SA lottery departments require that draws must be scrutinised by an independent person.

NSW

A scrutineer is only required to attend a particular draw where the total value of all prizes to be awarded in the draw is more than $10,000. According to NSW legislation, an ‘independent person’ can be a scrutineer.

That is, someone who, except for their role as scrutiniser:

• is not otherwise concerned with the management, conduct or promotion of the lottery; OR,

• is not a director, employee or otherwise employed by, or under contract to, the benefiting trade or business, the promoter, or an associated company, business or agency.

In addition, an independent person is a person who does not have any interest or relationship, personal or commercial, with the benefiting business or trade, or any person employed by the benefiting business or trade which might be or appear to be, incompatible with that person’s independence.

The only way around this is to obtain approval in writing from the NSW lottery department for a non-independent person to scrutinise the draw. If you would like further information regarding exemption, please contact our office.

SA

A scrutineer is only required to attend a particular draw where the total value of all prizes to be awarded in the draw is $30,000 or more. The scrutineer is not required to be approved by the Minister provided the following applies:

• The person is not associated with the licensee; AND

• Is either a commissioner for taking affidavits in the Supreme Court; a justice of the peace; a notary public; any person or class of persons authorised to take declarations under the Oaths Act 1936 (SA) (NB: this includes solicitors); or any person or class of persons approved by the Minister.

Please note that the SA lottery department has also issued a list of classes of persons who are approved by the Minister to act as scrutineers. Please contact us if you would like advice to confirm if a particular profession is on the list.