Lottery proves a Christmas loser with slumping sales

Further evidence of the National Lottery's decline became apparent yesterday when ticket sales for the Christmas Millionaire Maker game were revealed to have slumped by nearly £13m.

Camelot had predicted sales for the festive draw, which promised to create a handful of millionaires, might fall by £7m but the final figure was worse than its bleakest estimate.

When the Christmas Millionaire Maker game ran for the first time last year, sales reached £37m and this year Camelot predicted revenue of around £30m. But total sales for the special draw on Christmas Eve dropped to £24m.

Camelot had predicted that six millionaires would be created, but five ticket holders were made millionaires, half of last year's total.

Tickets for Millionaire Maker cost £5 each and give players two chances to win a fortune through separate games in a televised show on the BBC at 10pm on Tuesday. The programme also included draws for the Lotto, Lotto Extra, HotPicks and the mid-week Thunderball – which would normally happen on a Wednesday evening but were brought forward a day.

A Camelot spokeswoman blamed the drop in ticket sales on the fact that the Millionaire Maker draw was played alongside the other lottery draws this year.

"It's important to look at the whole portfolio and things have changed since last year. We have launched new games – HotPicks and Thunderball. Christmas Millionaire Maker was on its own last year and there were no other draws that evening," she said.

Low ticket sales were another sign that the public appetite for the lottery had diminished since its highly successful launch in 1994. On Sunday, the Secretary of State for Culture, Tessa Jowell, announced that she was considering nationalising the lottery when Camelot's licence expires in 2009, because of falling ticket sales. Despite giving the weekly game a new, Continental-sounding name, Lotto, revenue has dropped to a record low. Sales for the six months to 28 September fell 5 per cent to £2.3bn, the weakest half-yearly figures.

In an attempt to revive its finances earlier this year, Camelot announced a restructuring package, which resulted in about 80 people being made redundant and the closure of regional offices in Sunderland, Exeter, Leeds, Birmingham, central London and Reigate.

The company recently denied reports that it had dropped the comedian Billy Connolly from its advertising months after he was brought in as part of the relaunch to boost sales.

* The holder of a National Lottery ticket worth £250,000 has until 11pm today to claim the prize. The winning Thunderball ticket matched the numbers 10, 22, 23, 30, 32, and the Thunderball 10 in the draw on 29 June and was purchased in Kent. Camelot also appealed for the holder of a £9m Lotto jackpot from last Saturday to get in touch. It has the winning numbers 4, 22, 23, 37, 43, and 44.

Jacquie Wilson, from Camelot, said: "In the excitement of the festive season it looks like somebody has forgotten to check their Lotto ticket." Players have 180 days to claim their prizes.