The National Lottery: planning for leisure or pay up and play the game?

This paper assesses the introduction and likely impact of the National Lottery on leisure provision in the United Kingdom. A commissioned study of proposed capital projects and events looking to Millennium and other Lottery funds in London in the starting point for a critique of the relative position of public funding of the arts and sport and the absence of policy and planning considerations in the Lottery grant process.

The reassertion of a hegemonic subsidy system is analysed in terms of the divergence between participants in sport, arts and heritage-based activity and the likely purchasers of National Lottery tickets. The evidence gathered indicates that the beneficiaries of Lottery proceeds will be concentrated in the capital and regional cities; in major flagship projects and in the arts, sports and heritage organizations whose participants are predominantly drawn from higher socio-economic groups. The paper concludes that an opportunity to democratize the Lottery distribution process and the fulfillment of long-laid leisure plans appears to have been lost under the current Lottery legislative and agency structures.