WINNER!!
Hi All,
We are pleased to announce the lucky Winner has now been informed, that he will be the new owner of Oldborough Retreat in Devon.
The Winner is:
Christoph Jaeger from Hamburg, Germany
Age: 36
The Winning number is: OR91897
Understandably Christoph was absolutely stunned at the news when we telephoned him this morning. We can all only imagine what he is feeling and what is going through his mind at the moment!
This will conclude a long and eventful journey for us all. I don’t wish to get too sentimental, but it is a fact, that for many of you, a strong connection has been forged between us all throughout this ordeal, and we know that you care deeply about what happens to us in the future. As we have said on many occasions, we cannot express how much this support was appreciated at the times which were so stressful, and how uplifting the messages were, that always seemed to arrive in the inbox at the right time when they were needed.
To all of you who have invited us to drop by and visit – we just might! So we hope you meant it!
Although we will not continue to update the website on a regular basis now, we will continue to blog on our MySpace pages for as long as it feels appropriate to do so.
If the Winner, Christoph is agreeable, we will update the MySpace pictures with photos of him being shown around the Retreat. For those of you who are interested we will also include pictures and info about our big move!
Our efforts now will go into finding a publisher for Louisas’ book, telling the story from her personal perspective. This will be an interesting human interest story as well as containing all the ups and downs of the running of the Competition.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank our legal team. Our Barrister and her team for their sterling work in compiling the report on our Competition and helping to clarify and resolve issues that arose. And finally we have to conclude with the biggest tribute to Steve Kuncewicz, our Lawyer who has been advising us on a pro bono basis since April last year, at considerable time and expense to himself. Without his continued loyalty and input we could not have come anywhere near to completing this project.
Many of you have shared with us, your dreams and plans for The Retreat if you had been the winner. It is a privilege to have been a part of your lives. You have said the Competition has been an inspirational experience. Knowing that there can only be one winner, we hope you are not too disappointed, and will join us in offering heartfelt ‘Congratulations’ to Christoph at his good fortune, and wish him every success in whatever plans he has for the future of The Retreat.
Brian Wendy and Louisa The Wilshaw Family
Hi All,
Just a quick update, to apologise for the delay in announcing the winner.
The delay is being caused by the necessary legal work surrounding the eventual transfer of funds where they are currently held, to the solicitors client account.
We presumed that this would be a formality that could be completed on the day of the draw, but unfortunately it was not to be the case.
We are awaiting a signature on an agreement, which we expected to be finalised today, but due to a national holiday in Luxembourg, this has caused an additional hold up. As this agreement is for the protection of ourselves, and the winner, we regrettably feel that it is necessary to wait the extra 24 hours.
We are assured that we will receive the completed agreement in the morning (Friday) at which point we will telephone and email the winner, and put the announcement on our MySpace pages and Website.
We know that this is as much agony for you as it is for us, and we do appreciate your patience in this.
Thank you,
Brian Wendy and Louisa.
Hi All!
Well we didn’t get much sleep last night! Imagine every kind of emotion that you can think of and then add a few!
We were so pleased that Steve our Lawyer was able to get time off work to be with us at the draw. It was an emotional experience, as we finally saw our dream become
a reality.
The draw took place at 10.am this morning at the offices of WBW Solicitors in Exeter.
Present was the Public Notary Mr. Martin, his secretary Ms. Barsby, our Lawyer Steve Kuncewicz, a crew from BBC Spotlight news and ourselves.
Also present was a female solicitor from WBW who drew the winning number.
The Notary has certified that the procedure to draw the winner, was carried out according to our terms and conditions and to his satisfaction.
There now follows some administration to be completed before we can publish the details of the winner, so you will be on tenterhooks for a little while longer.
(You may be able to access photos or film on the BBC Spotlight website later on.)
We look forward to making the exciting call to contact the winner and publishing their details very soon.
Naturally, we won’t be entering into any correspondence regarding the winner before or after these details are announced.
Brian Wendy and Louisa
Hi Everyone,
Just a quick line to thank you all for your lovely messages of support, and to tell you that the draw has now been arranged for Tuesday 19th May.
For those of you have lost/misplaced your entry numbers, don't worry.
If you are the winner, you will not need to produce your number, just identification that you are the entrant named on the entry, which is logged in the Wowi (website company) database.
As per the Terms and Conditions, once the winning number has been drawn, having identified the entrant by the information they provided when they entered, we will try to contact the winner first by phone, then by email and post. We have a month to complete this before an alternative winner is selected.
We appreciate that you will all be waiting anxiously for the winning number to be published, so we will try to get it on the Myspace pages and the Website as soon as it is possible to do so after the event.
Thanks once again to everyone who stayed with us to the very end, and good luck to you all in the draw.
The Wilshaw Family
Well it’s been a long time coming, but we are very pleased to announce that our competition will conclude as planned and the draw will be going ahead.
Having considered all the correspondence between the Barrister, our solicitor and ourselves, the Gambling Commission have now deemed the matter closed.
Therefore, plans are now underway to organise the draw to take place in the next couple of weeks. (Date to follow)
After all the stresses of the past few months, we intend to make the draw a fairly low-key affair (complying with the Terms and Conditions of the competition). We are nevertheless really excited at the prospect of finally turning our project and your dream into reality.
We have instructed a Public Notary in Exeter who will be the independent adjudicator and will oversee the draw is undertaken in a fair and transparent way. We will also invite the local media to be present.
We cannot find the words to show our appreciation for the support and loyalty that so many entrants, from so many countries around the world, have shown us. Without that moral support in you emails, we could not have fought on, and without so many of you sharing our dream, we simply would not have wanted to.
In September last year, we bought a bottle of Champagne to celebrate reaching our target. For one reason after another the bottle didn’t get opened, but tonight we are opening our bottle of Champagne and we will drink a toast to all our entrants and supporters – now friends – and wish everyone good luck in the draw!
The Wilshaw Family
Hi Everyone,
Hope you had a Good Easter and enjoyed the lovely sunshine!
Well, we are all feeling much brighter today. The suspense is finally over and we have had a response from the Gambling Commission.
We believe we can see light at the end of the tunnel now subject to our solicitor and barrister dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s and reassuring us that all is ok.
Once they have done so, we will start to set in motion the arrangements to bring our competition to its conclusion!
On a more sombre note, we will be going up to Manchester for a funeral in the next few days so apologies in advance for any delay in replying to your messages.
As always, we will keep you informed of any further plans, when they are arranged.
The Wilshaw Family
Easter Greetings!
Hi Everyone,
Just to report that there is still no reply yet from the Gambling Commission. For new readers, the last communication we received from them said:
"Unfortunately I am unable to give you any further indication on how long our process will take. I can assure you that we are giving it our fullest attention and we are fully aware of the impact this matter has upon you and those who have paid to participate in the arrangement. As I have already stated, the process involves the Director of Regulation considering a full report and he will undoubtedly wish to confer on the matters arising before he makes his final decision. As soon as this decision has been made we shall be in contact with you via your solicitor’s office."
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their Easter prayers and greetings, and to wish you all in return -a very Happy Easter.
The Wilshaw Family
Hi Everyone,
This weeks’ update is just to reassure everyone that we really are doing everything in our power to bring the competition to a conclusion, and to reaffirm that the timescale involved unfortunately cannot be predicted. We have requested a progress report from the Gambling Commission so that we can update you all in the spirit of transparency that we have adopted from the outset. We received the following response from one of the officials:
‘Mr and Mrs Wilshaw,
I refer to your previous email and recent phone calls regarding an update on our progress on this matter.
Unfortunately I am unable to give you any further indication on how long our process will take. I can assure you that we are giving it our fullest attention and we are fully aware of the impact this matter has upon you and those who have paid to participate in the arrangement. As I have already stated, the process involves the Director of Regulation considering a full report and he will undoubtedly wish to confer on the matters arising before he makes his final decision. As soon as this decision has been made we shall be in contact with you via your solicitor’s office.’
Some of you have written to us enclosing copies of letters that you have sent to the Commission in support of us. Whilst your support for us is very much appreciated here, we fear that the extra work involved in dealing with your communications may delay the officers at the GC from attending to the decision that they have to make.
On a lighter note, Louisa and I are bearing up stoically having given up alcohol and chocolate respectively for Lent, so I think that a little self righteous congratulation is in allowed under the circumstances!
The Wilshaw Family
Hi Everyone,
No reply last week from the Gambling Commission, lets see what this week brings.
We had a lovely few days away last week. We went up to Shropshire to our solicitors wedding. It turned out to be a lovely evening at the end of a day when the sun shone
and everything went according to plan.
A big thank you to all who sent good wishes – they have been forwarded.
After extending the visit in to Wales and then Manchester, to include family and friends with milestone birthdays, we arrived back on Saturday and I am now ploughing through
the backlog of emails which have accumulated.
One question that keeps cropping up that I can reassure entrants on, is that it is not a requirement that you need your email with your entry number on. Many entrants seem
to have had crashes to their system, or accidentally deleted their email.
All entrant information is on the website company database so if/when the draw goes ahead and the winning number is chosen, we simply enter the number on the database and all
the info needed relating to that entrant will be there and we will contact you. Yes - you will have to prove that you are eg. Jane Smith but you won’t have to produce your
email and number.
We continue to be delighted at the support and patience from our entrants. Even in this economic climate it seems that it has become a matter of principle to most of you
now, that we don’t give up. Who could have predicted this level of solidarity 5 months ago when this issue originally arose.
This support is undoubtedly what has kept us all going strong here, we couldn’t be doing this without you.
The Wilshaw Family
Hi Everyone
Well, we have a little news to report this week. On Friday we were invited to what turned out to be a long meeting at the Gambling Commission. They described it as a fact finding mission, and although in reality they had already had all the facts in written form, this meeting gave them the opportunity to hear it all ‘ from the horses mouth’ as it were.
We had hoped that at the end of the meeting we would be given a decision, but apparently a report now has to be written up and sent to someone in higher authority. This will then hopefully be the final hurdle! We have been given no indication of how long we once again have to wait, but we still have to believe that it will lead us in the direction we need to conclude our dream.
I’ve been busy in the office this week entering the changes of entrant details that many of you have sent in, so apologies to anyone who hasn’t received a response as quickly as usual, and of course on Friday we were out all day in Birmingham at the GC so again apologies for any delays to correspondence. |Louisa and Brian have been hard at work on the grounds, starting to clear leaves and brambles, when the weather has permitted.
I’d like to take this opportunity to explain how our solicitor came on board with the competition.
Steve is the solicitor son of good friends of ours up in Manchester.
Back in April last year we rang Steve, to run by him our idea about our house competition, so he could give us his feedback before we took the finished idea on to a
local solicitor.
He loved the idea of what we were trying to do and said he would be more than happy to help us out by taking on the job of creating our terms and conditions on a pro bono
basis, (which means that he would do it for free).
To cut a very long story short, despite all the trials and tribulations that this project has thrown at us, Steve has been there for us – still on a pro bono basis,
taking meetings, dealing with the media, and the GC, taking responsibility and providing us with a shoulder where needed.
We could not possibly have continued this project and this fight for as long as we have, doing as well as we have, without his help and guidance, which has all been at his
own cost.
This week Steve gets married to Claire and we would like to very publicly wish them both a lovely wedding celebration and all the happiness in the world for the future.
The Wilshaw family
Hi Everyone,
What a frustrating week last week had been!
Having patiently awaited a response for three weeks since the discussions between the GC legal team and ours, we tried to chase up what the delay is with the GC solicitor.
So far we have had no reply from him to either our telephone calls or our email!
Our lawyer has been informed that the GC legal department are trying to set up a meeting with us but apparently it is taking time to co-ordinate all the persons who are required to be present. We are hopeful that this meeting will take place this week and naturally we will update you with the outcome of that.
A question that is still being asked of us is whether entrants can buy up the entry numbers from people who have requested a refund.
To date, of the 32 thousand entrants that we have, (as a gesture of goodwill), we have refunded only around 100 people who have ‘lost the faith’ which is quite remarkable
given the trials and tribulations we have all been through!
We do not intend to release any more numbers, even to recoup what we have lost, so the good news is that your odds of winning are now even better than they were!
Don’t forget to update us (if you haven’t already done so,) if you have changed your details or email address since entering the competition, so that we can keep a record,
for when we do have to do a bulk email. This would be to notify you all, either of the draw, or the mass refund. (Unfortunately anti-spamming regulations mean that we cannot
regularly email our entrants which is why we have these ‘update’ pages.)
If you can put ‘Change of Entrant Details’ in the subject line and send it to wendywilshaw@eclipse.co.uk that will make my admin easier.
Once again, we can only apologise for the length of time this is taking, and to reassure you all, that the process is not stalled but just progressing much more slowly than we ever envisaged.
Your supportive emails continue to be a source of motivation on the days when we want to bang our heads against the wall!
The Wilshaw Family
Hi Everyone,
Just a quick update to reassure everyone that the process is still continuing, although this last furlong is taking a little longer than we anticipated! The Barrister and our Solicitor have had discussions with the Gambling Commission relating to the report the Barrister prepared for us.
The results of those discussions, are now being considered by the Gambling Commission, and we are awaiting their response.
For those who are new to the updates I will just re-iterate that Paypal are holding the entire entry fund securely but on a 0% to us basis, so there is no advantage to us in the length of time that the process takes.
As ever your patience and support is appreciated whilst we all wait for this conclusion - with everything crossed!
The Wilshaw Family
Hi Everyone,
First a big thank you to you all for your continuing patience and supportive emails whilst we try to bring our competition to a conclusion.
We know that you appreciate that we are doing all we can at this time, and that as frustrating as it is, we do have to respect the time constraints of the people who are involved in the process.
Be assured that as soon as there is something significant to report to you, we will issue a new update.
The Wilshaw Family
Hi Everyone,
Just a quick note to update you all.
So the waiting goes on!
We did think that we would receive a response from the Commission last week regarding the report we submitted from our Barrister, but as yet we have not had a reply.
Maybe the snow and ice has played a part, as I think Birmingham was quite badly affected.
Naturally we will update you all as soon as we know anything.
The Wilshaw Family
Hi Everyone,
Just a quick note to update you all.
So the waiting goes on!
We did think that we would receive a response from the Commission last week regarding the report we submitted from our Barrister, but as yet we have not had a reply.
Maybe the snow and ice has played a part, as I think Birmingham was quite badly affected.
Naturally we will update you all as soon as we know anything.
The Wilshaw Family
Hi Everyone,
Just a quick update to let you know that we have now received the advice we sought from the Barrister.
This came in the form of a large document with her interpretation and analysis of how we have acted within the Gambling Commission’s guidelines for
‘Competitions and Prize Draws’.
The report concludes, that in the Barrister’s opinion, we have acted within the law, and our competition is legal.
Included is a request to the Gambling Commission to reconsider their original opinion of the status of our Competition.
The report was forwarded to the Gambling Commission on Friday, with a request for an urgent response.
We are almost certain that at some point this week, our competition will reach a conclusion.
Thank you for your continued support and patience.
The Wilshaw Family
Once again we must start with a big thank you to everybody who wrote in with supportive messages after the last update, I think we’ve just about caught up with responding to you all. Phew!
Just by way of clarification for all those of you who have drawn the comparison between our competition and with those on the TV etc:
As we understand it; where a promoter offers the entrant an opportunity to enter for free i.e. online, then the whole of the competition is classed as
‘free to play’ and as such there are no regulations governing the skill level of the questions they ask.
This is all stated in the Gambling Act and Guidelines in case anybody wanted to clarify it for themselves.
We are currently awaiting the response from the Gambling Commission to our official complaint against them, which should arrive today. Depending on the nature of the response this will then either be forwarded to the Barrister for legal considerations, or, the Parliamentary Ombudsman via our MP.
The Barrister we are in talks with should be available this Monday to look at our official ‘Instructions’ (sent by our Lawyer, Steve last week).
Any major decisions based on her advice, should be imminent.
We want to thank you for appreciating that whilst we are receiving external help, we have to respect their work schedules.
When a decision is reached on how the competition will be concluded, we will notify all our entrants by email.
Apologies for not mass emailing our entrants on a regular basis, there are certain rules and regulations regarding ‘spamming’ people en-mass that we do not
wish to breach.
In the mean time we will continue to update you on this website and MySpace pages.
Thanking you all once more for your continued support and patience.
The Wilshaw Family
Hi Everyone,
You will no doubt be relieved to hear that we feel that we are on the final furlong now.
Unfortunately we have received either no responses or disappointing responses from the Governmental departments where we have sought help.
Many of our more cynical entrants were telling us that we were wasting our time appealing to these departments, so despite the best efforts of Nick Harvey (our MP)
we are incredibly disappointed to report that the cynics appear to have been right!
The Department for Culture Media and Sport; “do not consider that it would be appropriate for the Department to intervene in the case”, but point out that if we are dissatisfied by the way we have been treated by the Gambling Commission we can appeal to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman whom we have since spoken with, regarding any future investigations about the way in which our competition has been handled by the Gambling Commission.
We have been shocked by how many promoters of house competitions have now been affected by the Gambling Commissions intervention. In a way it’s comforting to know that our solicitor and ourselves were not the only people to have interpreted the Commissions guidelines in a way that seems to be contrary to their intentions. We would like to take this opportunity to wish every success to those promoters who have managed to adapt and change quickly enough to continue with their projects.
Although we are sure we won’t start our competition again from the beginning, we haven’t completely ruled out altering the way in which we would draw our winner from the original plan of a random number generator. This is one of the options currently under consideration by the Barrister. If we do pursue any ideas we are currently considering, we will notify all entrants by email as well as on this site.
Frustratingly it is taking longer than we anticipated, sending and receiving communications with the Barrister we have spoken to, as everything from this point on has to be done through our Lawyer, Steve. He is anticipating a response from them towards the end of this week. We are still hoping for a way through all this without having to alter any parts of the competition, and hope that the Barrister can show us this way through.
We will continue to update everyone as soon as there is anything of major significance to report.
There are many people emailing us that are prepared to wait for a lengthy court case to conclude, feeling that we would be triumphant. We agree that we would be, given the way in which the Gambling Commission has behaved.
Then there are people emailing us that cannot wait any longer and are demanding we close the competition today. We are obviously torn between the many emails and suggestions we are getting as we value your opinions. We have to try to make decisions that will satisfy the majority of entrants, ourselves, and all of the people behind the scenes who have put so much hard work into this project. We are striving to find that happy medium for all and feel that concluding this competition within weeks rather than months is hopefully an acceptable balance.
Once again, your patience and support is vital to us, and incredibly appreciated.
We hope you will all remain positive, for the short time remaining, and trust us, that we are still doing all we can to make somebody the proud owner of The Retreat.
The Wilshaw Family
Hi Everyone,
A Very Happy New Year to you all!
A big thank you to everybody who sent good wishes to us over the festive period, it was much appreciated.
New Years Eve saw us on the BBC Breakfast show again on their annual review, this was recorded at the Retreat a couple of weeks ago. Sorry we couldn't let you know in advance what day we were on as unfortunately we didn't get a heads up from them and the first we knew about it was when the emails from entrants came in mentioning it! It doesn't seem to have been available on the website either which is a shame. So we missed it too!
Just before Christmas, we managed to have an initial chat with the new Barrister via a brief conference call. We have a bit more searching to do in the Google Analytics statistics to forward to her when she is back in Chambers on the 8th January, then hopefully soon after that we will be able to have a more in depth discussion about what our options are.
The progress of the competition has slowed right down because of the festive holidays. Hopefully, once the Barrister, and the other prominent people we have contacted for assistance return to their desks over the next week or so, we will be able to get back on track again.
We are very grateful for your patience over the last couple of weeks, and grateful for the continuous support we are receiving from you.
Best wishes to you.
Wendy, Louisa and Brian.
Dear Entrants,
This update is by way of a summary for the benefit of all entrants, some of whom are only just coming back to the
website because this is the time of the original scheduled draw date.
We received our target of 46,000 entries on Sept 15th, and were making plans to bring the draw date forward and draw
the winner early, on Oct 16th.
A letter from the Gambling Commission on the 1st October stopped us in our tracks. They wrote stating they were
investigating all current competitions including ours to check the validity of the question asked.
After much correspondence between ourselves, our solicitor and our entrants, they have stated that we have not
complied with their guidelines because in their opinion the skill level of our question ‘did not prevent a significant
number of people from participating in our competition’. They further state that they have a duty to pursue and
prosecute illegal gambling and if we proceed with the draw they will consider prosecution.
Naturally, we are the kind of family that are feeling quite intimidated by this.
Since our initial phone calls to the GC in March this year, (where we outlined our plans and the question we intended
to ask and the value of the prize; they gave us no negative feedback) they have been aware of our Competition
throughout the course and have even been available to make comments on an Internet law news site.
It was only days before the draw date that the GC contacted us with their suggestion that we postpone the draw.
We have been quite pro-active this last few weeks and as well as receiving over 1000 letters of support from our entrants which we presented to the GC (and they immediately disregarded), we have appeared on the BBC and have also written to the Prime Minister, Lord Mandelson, Alistair Darling, David Cameron and our own MP Nick Harvey. We have spoken with Charlie Wallis of the Dept of Culture, Media and Sport this week and asked for a meeting with them if they think it necessary, to discuss what has occurred to date, and how we progress to a successful conclusion. He has taken our comments to his senior and will contact us in the near future.
Whilst we are still waiting for correspondence with certain MP's we are not prepared to cancel the competition completely in case they can help us. We have to explore every avenue available to us, so people don't think we have conceded without trying. If we refunded tomorrow, and we receive the news next week that we can be helped, then we would never forgive ourselves for being hasty when we could have at least waited for a response from the MP's we have written to. We do not expect miracles, but expect some form of justice for the inconsistent behaviour of the Gambling Commission, and we have asked them for clarification as to why they haven’t used guideline 3.14 which states that they could act leniently if they feel that despite our best efforts we fell a little short of their standards and a ‘misjudgement’ was made.
The original draw date was to be within two weeks of the original closing date of December 7th, so an announcement
of the winner wasn't going to be made until around Christmas time. We are hoping to have made a decision one way
or another by that time and be making an announcement on the Competition website and our MySpace profile.
If we do receive the assistance we have asked for, and we do go ahead with the draw, you will still be eligible
to win The Retreat if you have a confirmed payment when we check with PayPal, as this will validate your entry
number/s. (This is something we will check, and will not seek any form of confirmation from yourselves.)
If ultimately we make the decision to close the Competition without drawing a winner we will refund all entrant
money en mass, so nobody will lose out.
The funds are currently being held securely by Paypal but on a 0% interest to us basis, so there is no advantage
to us at all in this competition having become protracted.
For those that may query, we don’t know what interest if any PayPal are earning on the funds. We feel that this
is not where we should aim our grievance at the funds being tied.
The longer the situation is unresolved, the more our two nominated charities lose out on any surplus that there is.
Which is why we need the competition having urgent attention paid to it by the prominent MP’s we have contacted.
We hope that you approve of the stance we have taken and trust that this news isn't too disappointing to you, as you
should now be reading all about the draw, and who could win The Retreat.
We very much appreciate all the support we have received over the last few weeks, especially at this time whilst the
situation is still quite difficult.
We are doing everything in our power to keep the dream alive, and that somebody will still win this haven.
Best Wishes
The Wilshaw Family
(For further information use the link on the homepage to connect to the MySpace pages.)
Hi Everyone,
I thought it might clarify our position for you, and you might appreciate reading this letter from an entrant (who wrote directly to the Gambling Commission) and the subsequent reply from them. (I have taken the liberty of editing out the ‘hypothetical scenario’ section from the entrants’ letter to save space).
Some entrants have suggested that we are being over cautious and should defy the Commission and go ahead with the draw anyway, but as we understand it, if the Gambling Commission don’t accept that this is a legal competition then they will suggest that it is an illegal lottery and as such ‘have a duty to pursue and prosecute’ anyone running such a project. This is why we took their suggestion to postpone the draw on the basis that if we went ahead and gave away the house – and then the Commission prosecuted us and found us guilty, then we could be in the position of having lost the house and the funds which I’m sure nobody would expect us to do.
Currently we have written to the Prime Minister, Peter Mandelson, Alistair Darling, David Cameron and our own MP Nick Harvey. We are awaiting responses to our requests for intervention about this issue with the Gambling Commission.
Regards
The Wilshaw Family
P.S. Just a reminder that the funds are being securely held by Paypal but on a 0% interest to us basis.
There are more frequent updates on the Myspace pages which can be accessed from the link on the website
homepage.
Letter from Entrant
Dear Mr. Kavanagh,
I wish to firstly highlight that I was very irate when I last wrote to Mr. Pomeroy. I have since, had time to calm down and have spent many an hour researching the various literature available on both your website and other sources and you will be pleased to know that I will be once again going to town in this response to you – and I am afraid I cannot be held responsible if I am unable to maintain my current calm through out.
You quote the Gambling Act 2005 in your letter, where you state that in providing for the distinction between lotteries and prize competitions, the Act specifies that a scheme will be treated as relying wholly on chance when the element of skill, judgement or knowledge cannot reasonably be expected to either:
(a) Prevent a significant proportion of people who wish to participate from doing so; or
(b) Prevent a significant proportion of people who participate from receiving a prize.
You go on to highlight that if either of these barriers to entry can be shown, the process will not be deemed to rely wholly on chance and the arrangement will not be a lottery.
Now, Mr. Kavanagh, tell me, what does “significant” mean to you from the above two statements?
Let me put it another way, 50,000 tickets are required for a prize competition on a website. A good few visitors come to the site, let say 80,000. Of the 80,000, 50,000 really persevered and were successful in answering the really tough question that was posed on the site that required you to submit an answer, if you got it right, then pay £25 before you were entered into a draw. The remaining 30,000 visitors on the other hand, simply looked at the questions and decided they were not even going to try to answer as it was too hard and just left the site. Is 30,000 out of 80,000 a ‘significant’ proportion of people who were wishing to participate, but were prevented from doing so because they thought the question was too hard? Is 20,000, 10,000, 5,000 or 1,000 out 80,000 a ‘significant’ proportion? Do you know what significant means? By the way, all these statistics can be proven in the form of unique “cookie” (your IT guys should be able to shed some light on this for you) information being available.
Since this is all you people at the commission seem to be picking at, what do you say to the above? Is it a lottery? Do you even know?
Now, Mr. Kavanagh, tell me, are you investigating all these competitions because you believe they are truly in breach of the Act and your guidance or are you simply trying prevent individuals from genuinely trying to sell their homes and are not even really concerned about making a profit?
Yours sincerely,
That Same Disgruntled Prize Competition Entrant
Reply from the Commission
Dear Mr. Shaw
Thank you for your e-mail of 4 November to Mr Kavanagh concerning www.winadevonpropertywithfishing.co.uk. I have been asked to reply on his behalf.
As Mr Kavanagh mentioned to you in his e-mail letter dated 29 October it is not the Commission's policy to comment publicly on individual cases. However, I will try to respond to the general questions raised in your e-mail.
Firstly, your question about the meaning of the term significant in relation to section 14(5) of the Gambling Act 2005 (the Act). The Act gives no indication of how the phrase significant is to be interpreted and it is the view of the Gambling Commission (the Commission) that it should take its ordinary, natural meaning and in any particular case, what is a significant proportion will depend on the context and the facts of a case. Ultimately only the Courts can authoritatively interpret the law. The Gambling Act 2005 came into force on 1 September 2007 and it will take time before a body of caselaw has developed to provide a definitive interpretation.
In respect of your hypothetical scenario. The promoter of any prize competition must ensure in the first place that it genuinely relies on skill, judgement or knowledge rather than chance if it is not to be a lottery. Where there is doubt the promoter should be able to demonstrate how the skill, knowledge or judgement element of their competition has eliminated a significant number of people or prevented a significant number of people from participating.
Genuine prize competitions are free of statutory regulatory control under the Act. Such competitions can be organised commercially for private benefit and profit. This contrasts with lotteries which are the preserve of charities and other goods and are subject to statutory regulatory control under the Act.
The Commission has a responsibility to monitor the boundary between prize competitions and lotteries to ensure that those operating lotteries are acting lawfully. The Commission also has responsibility in respect of investigating and prosecuting illegal gambling including unlawful lotteries.
Yours sincerely
Cliff Young
National Compliance Manager - Lotteries
Hi Everyone,
Sorry it has taken a while to update you this week.
We have now received a response from the Gambling Commission, however it is still throwing up inconsistencies with advice that they have given to the public and to us on previous occasions.
As a result of this our lawyers are again looking into it further.
I'm sorry we've been pretty vague about this, but whilst we are still seeking legal advice, it's only appropriate that we don't publicise any official correspondence at this time.
Today we have been speaking to a colleague of Steve's with more specific knowledge of Gaming. He is having a meeting with his superior on Wednesday, and has pencilled in a meeting with us for Monday/Tuesday next week.
We have also written to Peter Mandelson tonight, at the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, urging him to intervene on our behalf.
We promise that we will not prolong this process any longer than necessary, none of us want that, but neither do we want to throw in the towel and then someone say; "Oh if only you'd waited a little longer, or tried this, or asked that"....
Of course we are aware that all our entrants are waiting for a positive outcome to this, so we are determined to continue, until we have exhausted every avenue.
Thank you for remaining as patient and supportive as you have been so far. We still have this dream to realise for us here, and for you too. We are doing everything we can to achieve this, and can only do it with you alongside us.
We know that you'd all love to help us in whatever way you can, and if there is anything you can do we will let you know.
We appreciate all the efforts you have made thus far.
Brian Wendy and Louisa
Hi Everyone,
Well I thought I would have had something to report today but – no.
On Monday 10th November, I sent this email to the Compliance Administrator at the Gambling Commission:
Could you please acknowledge for me that Mr. Kavanagh is in receipt of the response from our solicitor Mr. S.
Kuncewicz sent on the 31st October.
He sent his response to Mr. Kavanagh and several other members of the commission, but we have not had any
acknowledgement as yet.
It would be nice to know if we are receiving careful consideration or if we are at the bottom of a very
busy in-tray at the moment.
Kind Regards
Wendy Wilshaw
I received the following response:
Dear Mrs Wilshaw,
Please accept our apologies for not having acknowledged receipt of the response from Mr Kuncewicz. I am informed
that the matter is currently being considered and we anticipate a response will be sent to Mr Kuncewicz either
today or tomorrow.
Kind regards
As I write we have still heard nothing yet.
I’ll keep you posted.
Wendy Wilshaw
Hi Everyone,
Just a quick note, for those of you who requested more frequent updates, to say that on Friday 31st October, our solicitor sent in his substantive and very comprehensive response to the most recent correspondence from the Gambling commission in relation to our Competition.
He stated that we would look forward to their response within seven days of the date of the E-Mail.
He informed them that a hard copy, containing 1000 attachments (of support and ‘evidence’, from our entrants and the general public) has been sent to Tom Kavanagh (Deputy Chief Executive at the Gambling Commission).
We now await the positive decision that we are all hoping for.
The Wilshaw Family
Hi Everyone, This is just to reassure everyone that we are still here and working hard behind the scenes to bring our competition to it’s rightful conclusion, and to answer a few of the questions that you are raising.
The funds are being securely held for you all, by Paypal on a 0% interest basis. These funds are inaccessible to us
until the completion of the house transfer to the winner.
We would love to have been in a position to donate the interest to charity, but unfortunately that choice is out of
our hands.
The legal response has taken longer than anticipated for Steve to finalise, but along with his very professional
response we have formulated a ‘laymans’ version, which you can read below.
We know that some of you have been very proactive with your support and might like to see all the guidelines involved
in the Gambling Act concerning prize draws and see how we feel that we have met them with the structure of
our competition.
We cannot say how thankful we are that you are keeping faith in us and our original concept, of doing something
wonderful, for one lucky person, and allowing all the other entrants the opportunity to share in the fantasy,
that winning Oldborough Retreat has become.
We could never have dreamed of the impact that this competition would have on so many family’s lives.
Wendy, Louisa, and Brian
View the requirements of the Gambling Act 2005
Just a quick note as I know everyone is anxious to know what is happening at the moment.
This week has been about nationally and locally informing the general public of the situation we have been facing with the Commission.
We have read and categorised all the support emails so they are in a format that Steve our solicitor can use most productively.
We have received some very useful statistics from the website technicians that have been researched from our Analytics Pages.
Steve has almost completed our lengthy response to the Gambling Commission, which should be ready to send today or tomorrow.
We don’t know how the infrastructure works at the Commission so we can’t really comment on a timescale for a definitive decision at this point, but they are obviously aware that the draw was postponed.
We will only resume on the basis of a favourable decision.
Thank you to all who have responded and sent in constructive suggestions to help with the cause.
We will continue to update you any new developments.
The Wilshaw Family
We are so sorry to have to tell all of our entrants that the Draw has been postponed.
The Gambling Commission have begun looking into the concept of House Competitions generally and as part of that process we have contacted and are in discussions with them to confirm that the competition meets their requirements.
At this late stage of proceedings, the Gambling Commission have asked for more information on the Competition question, despite the fact that we approached them for guidance before the start of the competition in March of this year, only to be told that they had no issues with our conduct or the running of the competition.
It seems that after our success, which was only made possible by our entrants and the public support which we’ve received, a number of copycat projects have launched which the commission are concerned may not comply with their guidelines. This means that they are looking into all similar competitions and raising issues over the concept of dealing with property in this innovative way.
We have been asked to demonstrate why we believe that our question prevented a significant number of people from participating in the competition, which is the main legal test to decide whether or not the competition is authentic rather than a simple lottery or game of chance.
We and our Solicitor have responded immediately and told the Commission that only a small minority of the population have purchased coarse fishing licences over the past year – around 500,000 from an adult population of 45 million. As such, only a small minority of the public would know the answer to our question without any basic research over the internet which the Commission’s guidance stated was in line with the current legislation.
We realise that the Commission will need to make checks given the sheer number of sites coming on line, but we are of course frustrated by the timing of their queries and the fact that they have previously made open statements to us and to the national press that the Competition was lawful. We were asked to postpone the draw on October 3rd and since then have done everything we can to assist the commission and to demonstrate that we have followed their guidelines to the letter, however the process is still ongoing and as such we have no choice but to postpone the draw to ensure that all of our entrants still receive their chance to win.
We, like you, are desperately disappointed by this news, coming so close to what should have been the most exciting time in this project and the realisation of handing the keys to our dream property to the lucky winner. We are also devastated that, by changing the rules after the process began, the Commission may decide that our dream may not be realised.
We are continuing our discussions with the Commission and can reassure all of you that the entry fund is still in place and still safe. The worst case scenario is that all of our entrants will be issued with a full refund if the draw does not go ahead.
In the meantime, we are eternally grateful for all of your support and would be delighted if you could forward on any messages of support to us via E-Mail to brianwilshaw@eclipse.co.uk with the words ’Public Support’ in the subject line so that we can pass them on to the Gambling Commission in the hope of making this dream a reality.”
(We hope that you can appreciate that we may not be able to send you an acknowledgment for any of these emails of support).
Brian, Wendy and Louisa Wilshaw and Steve Kuncewicz (Solicitor)
ACTIONS