PLAYERS of a new Forest lottery will be able to choose which good causes they support.

The Forest Council has launched its own lottery to help fund local community organisations in the wake of tightening budgets.

The lottery was laun-ched in front of an audience of representatives from local groups at the council’s Coleford headquarters last Friday (September 6).

They were told players will be able to buy tickets from Tuesday, October 8 – although the council is betting on its licence from the Gambling Commission coming through in time.

The first draw is scheduled to take place in November with a top prize of £25,000.

The draw will take place at 8pm with winners being informed automatically.

The game will be run by Gatherwell, a company which manages 65 lotteries for councils across the country.

Council leader Cllr Tim Gwilliam (Ind All, Berry Hill) said: “We started coming up with this 12 or 18 months ago because we were getting less certainty on funding from government.

“We give grants to organisations who do great work in the Forest, but even that funding could be under threat.”

Gatherwell managing director Ben Speare said: “Twenty five per cent of the National Lottery goes to good causes but this lottery is all about good causes – 60p in the pound will go to good causes.

“This lottery is different because players can nominate which good causes their money goes to.”

To win the top prize, players will have to match six numbers between 000000 and 999999 in the right order.

Matching the first or last five numbers in order will win £2,000, four will win £250, three will win £25 and two will get players three free tickets.

For each pound spent on tickets, 50p will go to local groups, 10p will go to a community fund which will be used by the council to fund local causes, and 20p will each go on prizes and running costs.

Lottery tickets will cost £1 each, although players will have to enter more than one draw at a time.

Mr Spear said: “We will ask people to sign up mainly to a recurring payment plan – what we won’t allow people to do is to buy single one-week tickets.

“Players can sign up through a dedicated Forest Lottery website or via a special phone line.

“What we want to do is create momentum with the lottery and allow people to have a long term relationship,” he added.

He said the first council to set up a lottery through the company, Aylesbury Vale in Buckinghamshire, had raised about £250,000 for local groups over the last three years.

If a group is nominated via 20 tickets, they would stand to make £520 a year.

Cllr Paul Hiett (Ind All, Bream), Cabinet member for communities, said: “I am really enthusiastic about the benefits of the Forest Lottery to, not only individual organisations within our community who do a fantastic job, sometimes with very little recognition, but the wider Forest of Dean who may also benefit from FODDC’ proportion of monies, so we can continue benefits for the Forest of Dean District residents.”