We had a fascinating discussion on Twitter yesterday on the subject of lotteries. It was sparked by the latest cunning money-raising scheme by “Better Together”, in which they enlisted unsuccessful “Great British Bake-Off” contestant James Morton to solicit donations, with the lure of a free signed copy of his book (cover price £20) for five lucky draw winners who’d donated more than £10.

The only slight problem with the plan is that it’s against the law.

The appeal constitutes a “lottery” under UK gaming legislation, because it fulfils all three criteria for such a designation listed on the Gambling Commission website:

There are very strict rules governing who’s allowed to conduct a lottery, and for what purposes. With a few exemptions, none of which apply to “Better Together” (which is registered as a limited company, not a charity), you need a licence to hold one in the UK. And when we searched the Gambling Commission’s operating-licence register, we found that “Better Together” don’t appear to have one.

For extra clarity, we rang the Commission up directly this morning and spoke to someone called Sonia, who confirmed that a political campaign organisation WOULD need a licence to solicit donations while offering randomly-drawn prizes in this way. We’ll be alerting them formally to the apparent breach once we’ve published this post.

Of course, it’s not the first time “Better Together” has ridden roughshod over the law. Last month they sent out another desperate plea for cash which managed to break one of the incredibly few rules governing political parties lying to the electorate.

As veteran readers will know from our article on the subject last August, politicians – unlike commercial companies – are almost completely free to say any old rubbish they want to voters, however untrue, with no fear of prosecution. The only exception to that rule is if “the specific statement in question is part of a direct solicitation for money”. Which of course a fundraising appeal plainly is.

(We also note that the “free t-shirt” aspect was another lottery.)

When alerted, however, the Advertising Standards Authority declined to act.

In April this year, the No campaign also attracted controversy when it sent out 300,000 spam texts to mobile phones – a criminal offence which can attract fines of hundreds of thousands of pounds, although BT put out a hasty press release denying having obtained the numbers illegally.

It’s not clear, however, whether any or all of the phone numbers involved may have been gathered during a period when the campaign was already in breach of data protection law, during which time it illegally collected the personal information of thousands of voters.

(“Better Together” doesn’t even follow the rules when it makes them up itself. Having said in 2012 that it wouldn’t accept any foreign donations of any amount, and would restrict itself to donations of no more than £500 from UK citizens, it then swiftly trousered £500,000 from Ian Taylor, an American-born businessman resident in England who’s the president of a Swiss-based, Dutch-owned oil company.)

Perhaps being part of the United Kingdom, while seemingly not being required to comply with its laws, is what the government-backed anti-independence campaign really means by “the best of both worlds”.