Lottery sales on the rise

BRITAIN'S gambling boom has helped push National Lottery sales up for the second year running. Revenue in the 12 months to the end of March rose 3% to £4.77bn at a time when many other major lotteries around the world are seeing falling sales.

The biggest increase came from sales through the internet, mobile phone text messages and interactive TV, which soared more than 600% to £87.5m.

Today's increase follows a six-year period of falling sales, a trend that was halted last year with the launch of new games and different ways of playing. Money raised for good causes was up 5% at £1.35bn.

The expansion of the Lottery into areas such as text messaging has been criticised by some anti-gaming groups but operator Camelot has always argued it has the toughest protection systems in the world. The company is working on a new way of playing games that will allow tickets to be paid for at supermarket checkouts.

Figures show that while revenue of the main Lotto game was unchanged at £3.23bn, sales of themed scratchcards and EuroMillions are soaring.

Gambling has seen an unprecedented boom in Britain over the past three years with an estimated fivefold increase in the amount of money wagered to £40bn.

Camelot is to bid for a new National Lottery licence. The current licence expires in January 2009 and new bidding will start next year. Camelot, which has held the licence since the Lottery's launch in 1994, controversially regained it in 2001 after it was initially awarded to a consortium headed by Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson. The decision was overturned on judicial review.