Red Cross goes gambling with Internet lotto

The charity must negotiate the legal mine fields of Cyberspace, where gambling laws for the Internet differ from country to country. Already three months after launching the lottery the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has pulled the plug on the scheme in Finland, Austria and New Zealand.

And it is not yet actively promoting the lottery in other countries for fear of running a foul of Internet laws still being written. For now, the lottery is advertised only on the Internet itself. “For the Red Cross the law is supreme, as is the culture in that country,” says Red Cross Federation marketing chief Dwight Mihalicz.

Austria passed a law early this year banning gambling over the Internet. Finland prohibits use of a credit card for gambling, making it impossible to play the Red Cross lottery. And New Zealand doubts the lottery is legal despite assurances from the Red Cross that it is.

Thousands of charities worldwide organise lotteries and many have fund-raising sites on the Internet. But the Red Cross was the first to combine the two, and interested charities are watching closely to see how it works or if it doesn’t. “We are studying it seriously,” says Marie Heuze, spokeswoman for UNICEF, the UN children’s fund. “We haven’t done anything yet, but we are interested.”

The Federation, which groups national Red Cross societies worldwide, introduced plus lotto in April in conjunction with Liechtenstein, the 161-square-kilometer principality nestled between Switzerland and Austria.

Liechtenstein started its lottery two years ago, but the tiny Alpine country got little attention. Incorporating the Red Cross as a partner gave the lottery wider recognition and more players.

The Red Cross hopes to attract young professionals with disposable income whose hearts remain untouched by traditional fund-raising methods photographs of children maimed by land mines and villages wiped out by floods and famine.

Each “ticket” costs one Swiss franc, or 70 cents, and players pay by credit card. The weekly jackpot is one million dollars, and Mihalicz says the weekly goal is five million plays bringing in 3.5 million dollars by the lottery’s first birthday next April.

A quarter of the gross earnings would go to the Red Cross. Half go toward paying the winners. And the rest goes to Liechtenstein charities and operational costs. Mihalicz is coy about how much money has been raised so far, saying this is a secret in view of potential competition.