Shops that miss targets lose Lotto machines

Camelot is to withdraw lottery ticket machines from more than a thousand newsagents which have fallen short of sales targets.

Faced with a big slump in the number of players, the lottery operator is to remove machines from shops failing to sell more than 1,400 tickets a week. The machines will be offered to retailers able to attract more players.

Sales have fallen for four successive years and despite a recent £27m campaign to relaunch the lottery with a new name, Lotto, weekly sales have slumped to £40m, compared with £70m seven years ago.

Camelot has also scaled down a promise to give £15bn to good causes over its seven-year licence period to £10.5bn.

To improve its performance, Camelot now plans to redistribute lottery ticket machines in a move which will hit some retailers very hard.

Shops from which terminals are removed will lose not only the 5 per cent commission on every ticket or scratchcard sold, but also an estimated £7,500 a year in additional sales from customers coming in to play the lottery. Sue Slipman, Camelot's director of external affairs, said some newsagents had not done enough to promote the Lotto and the good causes that it funds. She said: "The National Lottery has been a godsend to retailers. It has given them every opportunity to get people in.

"It has given them a really high spot from which they can organise. Clearly there are lots of other people who are desperate to have a terminal because they want that opportunity too."

Dianne Thompson, chief executive of Camelot, was seen to have made a big mistake earlier this year when she said that players of the lottery draw would be lucky to win £10 and the odds of hitting the jackpot were one in 14 million. But Camelot said her comments had been taken out of context with the odds of winning £10 one in 57.