The lottery to decide who gets the licence to operate the UK national lottery is to be drawn on Wednesday, and the Financial Times reckons it knows the planned procedure – it says director-general of the national lottery Peter Davis will send a facsimile message to seven of the eight contestants at 10 minutes to 10 in the morning, notifying them that their bid has been unsuccessful, and the successful bidder will receive a fax that will be issued to the stock exchange and media organisations at 10am; the contenders are the Camelot Group Plc, owned by Cadbury Schweppes Plc, GTech Holdings Corp, De la Rue Plc, Racal Electronics Plc and ICL Plc; the Enterprise Lottery Thorn EMI Plc, GEC Plc, The Horse Race Totalisator Board and Autotote Corp; Games for Good Causes Plc – Ladbroke Group Plc, MAI Plc, Caledonia Investments Plc; the Great British Lottery Co – Granada Group Plc, Vodafone Group Plc, Carlton Communications Plc, Hambros Plc, Automated Wagering International Plc and Associated Newspapers Plc; Lotco Plc – Rank Organisation Plc, Mercury Asset Management Group Plc, Barclays Plc, Commercial Union Plc, Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, Schroders Plc, Electra Investment Trust Plc Ivory and Sime Plc and 3i Group Plc; and the UK Lottery Foundation, which teams Richard Branson with IBM UK Ltd – that one, plus Camelot and the Great British Lottery are fancied, but we wouldn’t care to place any money on the outcome…
