Calls have been made for in an increase in the amount charity lotteries can raise, from £10m to £100m a year.

Most people think charity lotteries should be allowed to compete fairly with the National Lottery.

A survey of 1,000 by the research group nfpSynergy found that 66% of respondents felt regulations stopping charity lotteries competing were unnecessary.

Only 12% said they were needed and the remainder did not know.

Polling found 64% per cent of respondents said there should not be rules preventing charity lotteries from raising as much as the National Lottery does.

The research found that 72% did not think there should be a cap on the number of tickets that could be sold in an individual charity lottery.

Researchers also asked 151 MPs for their views on lottery caps, with similar proportions as in the public sample saying they did not think ticket sales or prizes given by charity lotteries should be capped.

Labour MPs are less likely to be against restricting competition compared to Conservative MPs. So while 75% of Conservative MPs are against laws and regulation which stop competition, 56% of Labour are against it, with a high proportion of Labour “not sure”.

The Gambling Act currently limits society lotteries to £4 million of sales per draw, £10m of sales a year and a maximum draw prize of £400,000, and the limits were last changed in 2009.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has indicated that it is willing to increase the limits. It conducted a consultation, to which it has yet to publish the findings, on the possibility of raising the limit on the amount they can raise from £10m to £100m a year.

The People’s Postcode Lottery, which has funded the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust, is calling on the government to raise the limit.