Lottery sales jump online but fall in stores

But most of the rise was attributed to online sales, which were up 13%, with store sales falling by 4.7% to £2.2bn.

Camelot said its retail partners were affected by “difficult conditions”, with fewer customers visiting stores and preferring to do big shops less often.

There was also a 3.7% fall to £1.7bn of scratchcard and instant win sales.

Camelot said: “Despite this, retail remains the largest National Lottery sales channel and Camelot remains committed to doing everything it can to help its in-store partners, particularly independent outlets, which make up the majority of its 44,500-strong retail footprint – including continuing its highly successful National Lottery standards programme which awarded more than £268,000 in cash rewards to shopkeepers over the first half of the year.”

Shops selling lottery tickets also took home a total of £125.6m in sales commission over the period – equivalent to more than £2,800 per store – taking the total sales commission earned by National Lottery retailers since 1994 to more than £7.5bn.

Incoming lottery operator Allwyn, which is due to take over from February 2023, announced yesterday that it had stuck a deal to acquire Camelot.