ABF to benefit from Britian's fairer lottery

Army Benevolent Fund set to raise up to £500,000 with monday – the Charities Lottery

A new fairer lottery

At last – a reason to love Mondays. From 20 April Brits can take part in a fairer weekly lottery. One that means they are 27 times more likely to win a jackpot than with The National Lottery.

The ABF is set to raise up to £500,000 as one of 70 charities partnering with monday – the Charities Lottery. With one draw scheduled to take place in October, the ABF stands to raise £500,000 of unrestricted funding so it can be used immediately or in response to any urgent need.

For every pound spent with monday, 30p goes direct to charity. That’s five times more than with The National Lottery. As well as the ABF, monday will contribute to a wide range of charities including Barnados, The British Red Cross, St John Ambulance, Trees for Cities, Shelter and WWF.

“We are thrilled to be part of the monday lottery, a revolutionary new fundraising initiative with potential to transform our charity and will enable us to reach significantly more beneficiaries. The funds raised will be used to support our on-going work with soldiers, former soldiers and their families as well as meet the projected increase in the demand for our help. Unrestricted funds are so vitally important to our charity because they enable us to respond immediately to any demands for our help.”

Siân Mexsom, Director of Central Fundraising Fundraising at the ABF

monday aims to raise £150 million for UK registered charities each year – making it one of the largest charitable fundraisers in the UK. Furthermore, the cash will reach the charities within days of each draw and it’s unrestricted, leaving the most qualified people – the charities themselves – to decide how best to spend the funds raised. And for the first time it’s the players who decide which charity gets their cash.

How is lottery play different?

Because monday’s a fairer lottery in all respects there are some clever twists to normal lottery play:

• There will be two jackpot draws instead of one. So if people don’t win in the first, they can still win in the second
• Because matching all six numbers is near impossible, the player/s with the nearest match to the six winning numbers will get the jackpot
• Because roll-overs don’t seem fair, there are none – so there are guaranteed jackpot winners every week
• Rather than giving crazy amounts of money to one person, monday’s lottery will give bigger cash prizes for matching 3, 4 and 5 numbers

There’s also no chance of losing your ticket and no last minute rushes to the newsagent – as monday is played online at www.playmonday.com. The first draw is 8 May at 8pm and then on every Monday thereafter.

Who benefits?

monday is run by Chariot (UK) plc on behalf of its charity partners. Tim Holley, who ran Camelot until 2001, is Chariot’s Chairman. As he explained:

“People want a fairer lottery. This common frustration has led to the creation of monday. We’ve taken three years to develop this and know it will succeed because it rewards players and charities alike. We like to think that monday is the lottery for unlucky people – the vast majority who have played the lottery since it started but have never won anything. At a pound a week that’s potentially £592 spent with no return. With monday people will have a much better chance of winning.”

Tim Holley, Chariot’s Chairman.

Just as players will benefit from the new lottery so will monday’s charity partners. From the larger charities which will receive a much needed source of unrestricted funding, to the smaller ones who find it a struggle to apply for grants and additional funding because of red tape and the time it can take for the money to reach them.