Camelot has filed a lawsuit in the United Kingdom after losing the authority to operate the National Lottery.

Camelot, the outgoing UK National Lottery operator, has filed a high court appeal against the British Gambling Commission after the lottery was handed over to rival Allwyn after 28 years of operation.

Camelot’s Chief Executive Nigel Railton said: “We firmly believe that the Gambling Commission has got this decision badly wrong. Despite lengthy correspondence, the Commission has failed to provide a satisfactory response. We are therefore left with no choice but to ask the court to establish what happened. Irrespective of Camelot’s dual roles as current operator and applicant for the next National Lottery license, the competition is one of the largest UK government-sponsored procurements and the process deserves independent scrutiny. Separately, more than 1,000 Camelot employees work tirelessly to successfully operate The National Lottery under the current license and, at the very least, they are owed a proper explanation.”

“We regret Camelot’s decision to pursue legal action following the outcome of a highly successful competition for the fourth National Lottery license,” the Commission responded. We believe that the competition and our review were conducted fairly and lawfully in compliance with our statutory obligations and that a court would reach the same conclusion.

“These proceedings will not help that but we trust that Camelot will honor its obligations as the current licensee to cooperate in that transition, and we will continue to use the tools available to us to facilitate that process”, the regulator concluded.

Allwyn is owned by the Czech group Sazka.