A RIVAL to the National Lottery that promises to allow punters to choose which cause will get 30p in every £1 ticket will be launched next week with the support of charities fed up with the official game.

Widespread concern that obscure groups are being favoured over better-known causes have led 70 charities to sign up to the new lottery. They include organisations such as Barnados, The British Red Cross, St John Ambulance, Marie Curie Cancer Care, Sense, Shelter and WWF.

The new lottery, called monday, will operate online and by telephone in order to get around gambling laws designed to prevent a national paper-run competitor.

MPs said yesterday that the organisers, including a former chief executive of Camelot, the company that runs the National Lottery, could revitalise the present system after bad publicity about the choice of beneficiaries. The launch of monday comes as the Government begins consultation on the licence to run the National Lottery from 2009.

Nigel Evans, a Tory spokesman, said: “A lot of people get depressed when they read that mountain rescue teams are turned down for National Lottery bids because they do not rescue enough ethnic minorities, as happened in my constituency. So at least this will be a wake-up call to say they have got to look more carefully at how they are doling out National Lottery money.”

“The Government will also be a big loser because they have siphoned so much money off from the National Lottery.”

But he added: “People will want to know much more about this rival lottery, especially about how it is going to be properly audited to make sure it is completely above board.”

Paul Gauntlett, of the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation and one of the beneficiaries of monday, said that his charity had been turned down twice in the past ten years for National Lottery funding. It was awarded £150,000 last month after a third attempt. He said: “There are significant benefits that the new lottery can provide. I would encourage people who want to support charities to support it.”

Bill Bond, founder of the Battle of Britain Historical Society, said: “We were refused a grant from the National Lottery to build a monument because it said the Battle of Britain wasn't part of our heritage. At the same time they funded a group connected to prostitutes. We were disgusted.”

Of the 28p from a National Lottery ticket, 28p goes to “good causes”. The beneficiaries are chosen by government-appointed committees independent of Camelot, the operator.

Alternative lotteries are allowed to pay out a maximum jackpot of £200,000, but the newcomer plans to hold five draws to bring weekly winnings to £1 million.

Tim Holley, chairman of Chariot, the company behind the new game, said that monday would be a fairer lottery for punters and charities. “We like to think that monday is the lottery for unlucky people. With monday, people will have a much better chance of winning,” the former chief executive of Camelot said. He plans to float the company on the Alternative Investment Market this year.

Mr Holley added that charities benefiting from the game would be allowed to spend the money how they wished. Five of the game’s 70 partner charities would be highlighted each week and players could choose which one they wanted to benefit. With time, more charities would be added to the list of 70.

This is in contrast to the National Lottery, where charities must apply in advance for funding on specific projects and have to meet certain criteria — a system that has generated considerable controversy.

While St Paul’s Cathedral was turned down for lottery money because it did not appeal to a “wide enough range of people”, projects on Nubian heritage and African dishes and a study on dreadlocks have been successful. Other controversial grants include £420,000 to help Peruvian farmers to breed edible guinea pigs, and £20,000 on teaching prisoners to play the xylophone.

Although Camelot holds Britain’s only licence to run a paper-based lottery, the Gambling Commission allows the establishment of “society” lotteries, such as monday, which benefit charity.

Players aged 19 and over will be able to play monday from April 24. Payment for tickets can be made by a debit or credit card or by postal subscription by cheque. The first draw is on May 8 — a Monday.

Anti-gambling campaigners expressed mixed views about the new game. Major Bill Cochrane, of the Salvation Army, said that with more than 370,000 problem gamblers in Britain the charity was concerned about the introduction of a new opportunity. “Online gambling from the comfort of your own home is potentially very addictive and can ruin people’s lives. The Salvation Army would encourage people who want to give to charity to donate direct to the charity themselves.”

But a spokesman from Gamcare, a charity that supports problem gamblers, said he did not believe that monday would lead to a big increase in problem or excessive gambling.

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