Lotto and Olympics fuel highest-ever first-half sales for Camelot

Camelot today announced its highest-ever first-half National Lottery ticket sales of £3.9 billion for the first six months of the 2021/22 financial year,

The operator said the 2.7 per cent increase on last year was driven by a strong draw-based games performance – particularly on Lotto, which is now in its third successive year of growth – as well as a steady retail recovery.

The growth was further boosted by the National Lottery brand connection to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, it added.

“I’m delighted to announce another record sales performance for The National Lottery. Crucially, this meant that we were able to deliver growth in returns to Good Causes, prizes paid to players, and Lottery Duty to the Treasury,” Sir Hugh Robertson, Camelot chairman, commented.

“Our profit was once again aligned with returns to Good Causes at the half-year stage and will be around 1 per cent of sales for the full year in accordance with our licence. An incredible £45 billion has now been raised for National Lottery Good Causes – 65 per cent more than the most optimistic Treasury forecasts at the time of launch.”

The amount generated for Good Causes from ticket sales grew by 6.5 per cent to £884.5 million during the first half – up from £863.7m last year (+2.4%). The National Lottery awarded £2.27bn in prize money to players – up £30.6m – and created 184 new millionaires in this period.

Total in-store sales grew to £2.33bn, up £102.7m (+4.5%). As a result, first-half retailer commission increased to £133m – up £6.5m (+5.1%) and the equivalent of around £3,000 per store.

Camelot’s in-store National Lottery standards programme for independent retailers has continued to prove enormously successful, with £288,000 in cash rewards – over and above their retail commission – awarded to independent shopkeepers in the first half of the year.

“The National Lottery’s continued strong performance is testament to the resilient, responsive business model that we have put in place since our 2017 strategic review,” Nigel Railton, Camelot chief executive,  said.

“Lotto is a great barometer for the overall health of The National Lottery so I’m really proud that, as a result of the series of Lotto enhancements we’ve made, we continue to be one of the only major operators in the world to be growing sales of our flagship game. That – paired with a steady retail recovery and our summer-long campaign celebrating the contribution of National Lottery players in helping propel our Olympians and Paralympians to success – all added up to a record first-half performance.”

The majority of the first-half National Lottery sales increase was driven by Camelot growing sales of draw-based games to £2.23bn, up £78.7m (+3.6%), with year-on-year growth across all draw games.

The operator has also seen record online sales of £1.62bn in the first half, an increase of £4.6m (+0.2%) compared to last year’s half-year uplift of 39.1 per cent resulting from significant Covid-19 lockdown impact.

Mobile sales grew by £21.3m (+1.8%) to an all-time high of £1.15bn, reflecting the wider, ever-increasing shift to mobile shopping.