Gaming Commission fires back at NLA

The Gaming Commission of Ghana (GCG) has said it would no longer sit by and watch the National Lotteries Authority (NLA) mislead the public with misrepresentation of facts about the work of the commission.

Deputy Director of the Commission, Rex Peter Yeboah told journalists claims by NLA the commission was not mandated to authorize games of chance in this country was inaccurate, adding that the suggestion by NLA that the Vodafone “More Money” game was a disguised lottery, was also incorrect.

He explained that the Commission was a statutory body established by an Act of Parliament referred to as the Gaming Act, 2006 (Act 721), Section 3(1) of which mandated the Commission to regulate, monitor, supervise and control games of chance in the country, excluding National Lotto.

Mr. Yeboah said according to Section 72 of the Act, a game “include a game other than Lotto in which participants in an anticipation of winning a reward on the results of the game which depends on luck and which cannot be determined before the end of the game, pay money for the right to participate in the game”.

“On the other hand, Section 56 of the National Lotto Act, Act 721, 2006 said “Lotto means a scheme for the distribution of prices by lot or chance especially a gaming scheme in which one or more tickets bearing particular numbers, draw prices and the rest of the tickets are blank”.

Mr. Yeboah said the key components in the definition of the game of chance were that winning the game must be purely based on chance or luck; the players of the game must pay money for the right to participate in the game; and the winners of the game could not be determined until the end of the game.

He said Vodafone’s “More Money” game possessed all the characteristics of a game of chance by the definition of Games of Chance under the Gaming Act, and not lottery or lotto.

“By this explanation it is obvious that the promotion by Vodafone is not Lotto but a game of chance,” he said.

He said Vodafone had fulfilled all of its requirements to the commission, including paying, to the commission, five per cent of the GHC1.75million prize money they are giving away in the More Money game.

“If NLA takes Vodafone to court, we will be there to present the facts as laid out in the law to make a case for Vodafone,” he said. Mr. Yeboah said the NLA’s assertion that the Commission’s mandate was limited to issuing annual licenses for organization to do games of chance was erroneous as the law clearly stated that the commission was to control, monitor and regulate and supervisor all games of chance in the country except national lotto.

“It is important to note that the Gaming Commission is a regulator and NLA is an operator and cannot regulate games of chance in this country,” he said.

He said the Commission had never given permit to any organization to run lotto or lottery but games of chance, and would continue to do so as long as the law mandated it.

Mr. Yeboah noted that as per Section 2(4) of the National Lotto Act, Act 722, NLA itself only allowed to operate any game of chance in partnership with any organization subject to “existing law on games of chance”, and that existing law was the Gaming Act.

“This means that if the NLA is interested in engaging in any form of games of chance promotion with any organization, institutions or corporate bodies, then they must be prepared to come under the regulatory mandate of the Gaming Commission,” he said.

He therefore advised the public to seek authorization from the Commission before engaging in promotions with elements of games of chance.

The NLA has recently been trying to frustrate telecom operators in particular, and claiming their rewards promotions are lotteries and they needed the mandate of the NLA and to pay some 30 per cent of the value of the promotions to NLA before practicing.

NLA is currently in court with Airtel and Tigo on similar accounts, and had been in court with the Gaming Commission since November 2010 seeking to quash the commission’s authority to fulfill its legally mandated objects.

The Gaming Commission had replied to NLA’s November writ, but it is not clear why the NLA is not pursuing that suit but rather chasing telecom operators around.