Leading Article: A flutter for the nation

IT WOULD be a churlish soul - or a football pools executive - who was not cheered by yesterday's publication of the Government's National Lottery Bill. If the public responds as expected, the lottery will generate up to pounds 1bn a year of extra money for five causes: the arts, improving the fabric of the nation's heritage, sports facilities, charities and, imaginatively, a Millennium Fund for projects to celebrate the year 2000. Assuming the money is well spent, all these will improve the quality of life for a very substantial number of people. In addition, the lottery will create many jobs and not a few millionaires.

The Secretary of State for National Heritage, Peter Brooke, believes the fears of the pools companies that it will also kill jobs is not justified. The lottery, he reckons, will attract a different type of punter. Filling in pools coupons requires skill, he said yesterday, whereas lotteries are games of pure chance. 'The lottery,' he even claimed, 'will not attract the gambler.' Rather, it will appeal to a new category of people willing to have a flutter knowing that part of it will be going to good causes.

That differentiation may look specious but Mr Brooke has a point: although pools addicts often win huge sums with random crosses, others deploy considerable knowledge, however fruitlessly. The true gambler is, furthermore, more likely to be drawn to forms of sport with better odds than a lottery, such as horse racing or the dogs.

With so much new money potentially on offer, the lobbying of the organisations that will distribute it is likely to reach a new level of intensity and sophistication, to the benefit of the public relations industry. Generally speaking, these will be existing bodies such as the Arts Council (to which the new funds will give a welcome fillip); Sports Councils; and the National Heritage Memorial Fund. But for the Millennium Fund a new Millennium Commission is to be created, to be chaired by the Secretary of State for Heritage.

Spending decisions, especially those of the Millennium Commission, will prompt much debate. Here, possibly in combination with the percentage destined for the arts, will be a chance to rival the grands projets beloved of recent French presidents: the Pompidou Centre, the Louvre pyramides, and so on. That is an exciting possibility. The corresponding danger is that, as one sponsorship specialist put it, 'we are about to be lumbered with a herd of white elephants'. It will be for the commissioners to ensure the money is realistically, as well as imaginatively, spent. It would be worst of all if it were frittered on minor projects.

Another danger is that the distinction between money from the lottery and annual government funding will gradually be blurred. Mr Brooke promised that 'this money will not substitute for other government spending'. But such promises are notoriously susceptible to erosion, even if only unconsciously. The Government cannot but be aware of the extra funds when deciding how much to give to whom. With luck, however, it will come to see that money spent on projects that stir the imagination is well invested. Belatedly so: yesterday's self-congratulatory talk of a 'Christmas present to the nation' raises the question: why did we, alone in Europe, have to wait so long for a scheme capable of doing so much good?