GTech launches international Net lottery service

Lottery technology company GTech has announced that it will provide services for an international lottery over the Internet. The service, called UWin! will be marketed to existing customers which run government sponsored lotteries in countries across the world. The service will not be marketed in the US because of state laws against Internet gambling in that country.

The service includes security software that restricts play to a defined set of registered users and the company stressed that it would be able to adapt the service so it conformed to local regulatory boundaries. The company has licensed software from Marimba that allows registrations to be authenticated and users PCs to be serialised, so that lottery organisers can be sure that all users come from jurisdictions that allow gambling over the Internet.

GTech was closely involved in the setting up of the UK national lottery, but was forced to withdraw from the consortium after a director was found guilty of attempted bribery. It remains a technology supplier to Camelot, the franchise holder of the lottery.

A GTech spokesman said: "We haven't decided whether to market UWin! in the UK yet, until we can establish whether it's legal to run wagering over the Internet there."

Camelot has indicated that it has no plans to offer a lottery over the Internet and the UK regulator, Oflot, confirmed it had not been approached about the idea. An Oflot spokesman said: "You need a bookmakers' licence to run a lottery over the Internet in this country. Camelot doesn't have one."