Camelot Looks Inward As Ticket Sales Reach Eight Year Low

By Brian Cullingworth, Last updated Jun 16, 2017

GBP 270 million less for charitable causes

UK National Lottery operator Camelot UK Limited will carry out a strategic review after reporting a sharp drop in National Lottery Ticket sales, this week.

Total National Lottery ticket sales for the 2016/17 financial year (1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017) amounted to GBP 6,925.3 million, a decrease of 8.8 percent compared to 2015/2016.

The review is being led by Nigel Railton, chief executive officer of Camelot Global, who took over Camelot’s UK operations following Andy Duncan’s resignation in April.

Players and Good Causes shared over GBP 5.4 billion during the past fiscal year,  and while creating 393 new lottery millionaires, total returns to Good Causes in 2016/17 were GBP 270 million lower than the previous year.

The company blames three “very long and statistically unexpected rollover series in quick succession” for a dent in customer confidence.

Jo Taylor, Chairman of Camelot, confirmed sales in 2016/17 fell “well short of where we’d like them to be,” agreeing that the company needs to re-engage players and address the performance of draw-based games.

“Given the current climate of economic uncertainty and increasing competition from the gambling sector, we expect 2017/18 to be equally, if not more, challenging for The National Lottery. It will therefore take time to turn things around and I anticipate a further sales decline this year.

“I am, however, confident that the review will enable us to put the business on the best possible footing to get back into growth – and so deliver even more for our players and the millions of people for whom National Lottery funding is so crucial over the remainder of this licence period.”

InfoPowa readers will recall a player call to boycott in 2015 who labeled the company greedy and out of touch after 10 extra balls were added to the UK National Lottery effectively changing the odds from a one in 14 million to one in 45 million chance of winning a jackpot.

Last year, the company hiked the cost of a EuroMillions ticket up by 50p or 25 percent and added a 12th ‘lucky stars’ ball which is believed to have slashed EuroMillions jackpot chances from one-in-117 million to one-in140 million.

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