The National Lottery celebrated its 13th anniversary on 19 November 2007 and has, for that entire time, been run by the Camelot Group plc, which has also won the latest licence up for tender starting in February 2009. Given that there was only one other challenger, has Camelot positioned itself as possibly the only company that could achieve such sales and consistency of approach that the National Lottery Commission wants? That may well be the case, given the steady rise in sales (the last full financial year aside) in recent years and the continued modernisation of the Lottery retail terminal distribution network.

The major developments in the market centre around new games, new causes – such as funding the 2012 London Olympics – and convenience. Regarding the latter, lottery players are embracing new platforms on which to play, away from the traditional retail model and physically buying tickets.

This report looks at the success of these interactive platforms, as well as sales trends in draw-based games and scratchcards as a whole, and general consumer participation and attitudes towards lotteries, and more specifically, The UK National Lottery.

This report covers all the gaming products offered by the National Lottery in the UK, plus other lotteries such as The Weather Lottery and the Play Monday charity Lottery, which until recently was operated by Chariot (UK) plc, as well as numerous other regional and local lotteries. Any lotteries not licensed by the National Lottery Commission or the Gambling Commission are excluded from the coverage of this report. (Incorrect only TNL is regulated by the NLC)

There are two main types of National Lottery game:

Draw-based eg Lotto, Thunderball, Dream Number, Daily Play, EuroMillions, Lotto HotPicks

Scratchcards.

Both kinds can be played on a variety of platforms.

Retailers with in-store Lottery terminals sell both draw tickets and scratchcards, while some retailers can only sell scratchcards. The following terms are used to refer to the National Lottery in this report: Lotto, Lottery and National Lottery.