Fortune-hunting Britons bet a record £3.5 billion on the National Lottery in the six months to October, 8% more than the same time last year, operator Camelot said today.
Ticket sales were up 3.4% at £2.4 billion while Brits spent £999 million on scratchcards, up from £816.8 million in the same six months of 2011.
Camelot, which was sold to a Canadian teachers’ pension fund for £400 million in 2010, said it raised £750 million for the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics from sales of its special lottery games and it gave a record £952.8 million, up 4% on last year, to good causes during the six months.
It also paid out £1.9 billion in prize money. Total National Lottery sales have grown 35% in the past decade.
Camelot has been at war with Richard Desmond’s Northern & Shell after the parent company of Channel 5 and the Daily Express launched a rival operator, the Health Lottery. The High Court in August rejected Camelot’s request for a judicial review of the Gambling Commission’s decision to grant the Health Lottery a licence, and the National Lottery operator has written to the Prime Minister asking him to close a “loophole” in the 2005 Gambling Act that allows the Health Lottery to compete.
