Allwyn Revolutionises UK National Lottery MidTier Prize Payments with PTX Payouts

About Allwyn

Allwyn is the operator of The National Lottery. Since its inception in 1994, The National Lottery has been a transformational force for good, changing lives every day. It has made a huge and measurable difference to life across the UK – not just for the millions of winners who have been awarded over £95 billion in prizes, including more than 7,400 millionaires made – but in generating over £50 billion for community, sport, arts and heritage projects across the UK. Allwyn – which became the first new operator of The National Lottery for 30 years when it took over on 1 February 2024 – is committed to building on this legacy.

Replacing 50,000 Cheque Payments Each Year

Allwyn, operator of The National Lottery, pays out over £2.8 million each month in mid-tier prizes (ranging between £501 and £50,000) for tickets bought in shops. It has over 43,500 retail partners across the UK that sell these winning tickets.

Previously, certain prize claims – specifically those under £500 and over £100 - were processed by post and paid manually by cheque. However, when Allwyn took over as operator in 2024, they created a whole new process for claiming mid-tier prizes via an online web form. Initially, all these prizes were still being paid by cheque, resulting in an additional 50,000 cheques issued annually.

For the lucky winners, collecting their winnings was not the most efficient process – often taking a few days between starting a claim and receiving the cheque, and sometimes requiring a visit to a bank or building society. Cheques were also inefficient for Allwyn due to the high processing costs and the cancelling and reissuing of lost, damaged or defaced cheques.

Turning to the Latest Digital Payment Technology

Allwyn recognised the need for a smarter, more efficient way to issue prizes. The company was already using PTX to manage Direct Debit collections for its retail partners and National Lottery player subscriptions, as well as for making Bacs payments to suppliers. Steve Manders, Finance Systems Consultant at Allwyn, explains how using PTX Payouts has had a transformative effect.

“Our main drivers were to reduce the administration and manual effort involved in paying prizes while speeding up how quickly players receive their funds. We researched the market and concluded that PTX Payouts offered unrivalled smart, digital payments and Bottomline’s Confirmation of Payee (CoP) for Business offering represented a real differentiator. Together, the solutions ticked all the boxes in our evaluation and have had a transformative impact at Allwyn.”