Draw-based games accounted for the bulk of Camelot’s sales in H1, rising 3.6% to £2.23bn, aided by year-on-year growth across all products in the portfolio.
Turning to National Lottery scratch cards and online instant win games, sales were up 1.6% to £1.73bn for the half. Camelot put this down to a strong retail as Covid-19 restrictions in the UK were eased.
As such, in-store scratch card sales were up 6.7% year-on-year while sales of online instant win games were down 8.8%. However, Camelot also noted that scratch card sales remain down on pre-pandemic levels as shopping habits continue to evolve
Camelot works with approximately 44,000 retailers across the UK, and expanded its network further in H1 by forging new partnerships with supermarkets Aldi and Iceland. These two partnerships meant National Lottery draw-based games were made available at checkouts in approximately 1,900 stores across the UK.
Digital sales, meanwhile, reached a record £1.62bn. This represented a year-on-year increase of just 0.2%, though this followed a particularly strong first half for digital in 2020, when sales were up 39.1% as a result of Covid-19 shuttering retail outlets and players shifting online.
Mobile sales were up 1.8% to an all-time high of £1.15bn, which Camelot said reflected a wider trend of an increasing shift to shopping via smartphones. This growth was aided by over 795,000 new online registrations.
The National Lottery awarded £2.27bn in prize money to players during the half, up £30.6m on last year, and created 184 new millionaires in the process.
“With National Lottery sales up across the board and very high levels of public participation, we’ve once again proved that our strategy of offering great consumer choice in a safe and convenient way continues to deliver vital contributions to Good Causes across the UK,” Camelot chief executive Nigel Railton commented.
“This record first half shows that The National Lottery continues to be in its best-ever shape as it delivers for Good Causes, players, retailers and Treasury,” Railton added.
Source: iGB
