SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Camelot UK has announced a £175.9m increase on National Lottery ticket sales to £3,456.3m for the first six months of its 2018/19 financial year (1 April to 29 September 2018).
Camelot’s success in building on last year’s sales progress comes as the group seeks to benefit from its wide-ranging strategic review which it conducted in 2017.
Over the same period, sales across The National Lottery’s digital channels grew to a record £831.4m, an increase of £77.4m, driven by a better game range and mix, improved merchandising and the launch late last year of a full version of the Android app.
Mobile sales increased by £99.8 million to an all-time high of £431.6m, with sales through smartphones and tablets now accounting for over 50% of all digital sales.
Camelot CEO Nigel Railton commented on the firm’s progress: “Thanks to the work we’ve been carrying out following our comprehensive review of the business, we’ve made a very positive start to the financial year across the board,” he said.
“Delivering over £2.8 billion to Good Cause projects, players and retailers in just six months is a fantastic achievement – and underlines the massive difference that The National Lottery continues to make to the lives of people and communities throughout the UK.
“Everyone at Camelot is committed to ensuring that this success story continues, so we’ll be looking to build on this momentum by continuing to focus on those areas that we identified in the review. We’ll continue to make improvements across our retail and digital channels, and build on the good headway we’ve made to date in making The National Lottery brand more relevant and visible.
“On top of that, we’ve got some great plans for the second half of the year to ensure that we’re offering a more balanced and appealing range of games that offers something for everyone – starting with exciting changes to Lotto next week to give our players a better winning experience.”
He added: “While there is much work still to do – and while we’ll continue to face challenges that are beyond our control, such as economic uncertainty and unrelenting competition from both the gambling sector and industrial-scale society lotteries that operate on a national basis – I’m very encouraged by the further progress we’ve made over the first half of this year.
“I’m confident that the strong foundations we’ve put in place and the exciting plans we have lined up will help us deliver even more for our players and the millions of people for whom National Lottery funding is so crucial.”
