Camelot reports half-year sales increase on 25th anniversary

UK National Lottery operator Camelot has announced ticket sales of £3.92bn for the first six months of its financial year, a 13.5% increase from 2018.

The period from 1 April to 28 saw Camelot’s digital sales totalled £1.16bn, up 40.0% year-on-year and marking the first six month period in which digital sales surpassed £1bn.

That digital figure included£749.0m in mobile sales, up 73.5% year-on-year.

Across all channels, sales of draw-based games made up the majority of Camelot’s turnover, bringing in £2.26bn, up 15.3% year-on-year.

Camelot said the EuroMillions game represented a “significant boost” in sales, as rollover draws eventually created a jackpot of £170m, which was won on 8 October. However, it added that sales would have set a first-half record even without the boost provided by the series of rollovers.

Instant win games and national lottery scratchcards, meanwhile, increased 11% year-on-year to £1.66bn.

The operator generated £876.8m for charitable causes, up 10.5% year-on-year. Since the start of the program, National Lottery funding has been awarded to more than 565,000 individual projects, with 70% of grants totalling £10,000 or less.

Camelot also awarded £2.24bn million in prizes to players, up 13.4% from 2018/19, including 147 prizes of £1m or more.

Today (14 November) marks 25 years since the launch of the National Lottery and chief executive Nigel Railton said the operator is in its strongest ever position today.

“It’s 25 years to the day since we started selling tickets for that first Lotto draw, and our record half-year performance clearly shows that The National Lottery is in its best-ever shape,” Railton said. “Not only are sales up across the board, but we’ve also delivered over £3.2 billion to Good Cause projects, players and retailers in just six months – underlining the incredible difference that, over two decades on, the National Lottery continues to make to the lives of people and communities throughout the UK.”

This year, the total amount the operator raised for charitable causes surpassed £40bn, while the total amount of prize money paid out reached £73bn.

Railton said the coming year would include further reinvigoration of the lottery, as well as anniversary activities.

“We’re continuing to make excellent progress on reinvigorating The National Lottery brand to make it more relevant and visible by more effectively communicating the uniqueness of The National Lottery and by working closely with the wider National Lottery family on initiatives which recognise the all-important contribution of players to a huge range of projects across the UK,” Railton said.

“More recently, we’ve all worked together to run some incredible 25th birthday activities across the UK – featuring famous faces and well-known National Lottery-funded landmarks – to celebrate everything that’s been made possible thanks to National Lottery players over the last 25 years.”

In October, Camelot announced that it had instructed retailers to stopp selling £10 scratchcards as part of an effort to tackle problem gambling as of 27 September, leaving the highest-priced instant win game at £5.