Lottery is on a roll

Gamblers are flocking back to the National Lottery after years of falling sales and bad publicity.

Lottery ticket sales have risen for the first time since 1998, ending a disastrous run of dwindling returns, Camelot revealed today. Now Camelot wants to sell tickets by mobile phone to boost sales further.

An extra £40million in tickets was bought in the 12 months to the end of March, turning round a decline which had seen sales plummet in the previous year after a disastrous advertising campaign fronted by Billy Connolly.

Britons are now gambling £88 million every week on the Lottery - an increase of one per cent on last year.

Camelot boosted its annual takings to £4.61 billion thanks to the EuroMillions game, which links Britain's draw to French and Spanish counterparts and has already earned one British player £16.7million.

The Lottery operator has now revealed it is in talks with mobile phone companies for a system to let players pick numbers for the main Lotto and Daily Play draws from their handsets. The scheme will be launched later this year.

Camelot will also try selling Lottery tickets at supermarket checkouts