Camelot to launch two £1m games

The lottery operator Camelot has been given permission to launch two extra National Lottery games, despite its legal action against the game's regulator.

The lottery operator Camelot has been given permission to launch two extra National Lottery games, despite its legal action against the game's regulator.

Camelot said it would launch the two games later this year, which will earn winners a minimum prize of £1m. It claimed the new games would help to reverse a long-term decline in public interest in playing thelottery.

The Lottery Extra game will allow National Lotteryticket-holders to wager an extra £1 on a second six-number draw twice a week. It will pay out only jackpot prizes, which will increase with successive roll-overs. In December, it will stage the second Big Draw game, which will be drawn on New Year's Eve. For a £5 wager, players will have two chances to select six dates and win either a jackpot or a second £1m prize. Last year, the game generated £80.6m in ticket sales.

Camelot's announcement was timed to coincide with the start of its two-day legal action at the High Court today, which will challenge the decision by the National Lottery Commission to reject its new licence application.

Camelot, which says its sales have gone up by 3 per cent since April, compared with last year, now risks losing control of the lottery and sacking 800 staff when the next licence comes into force on 1 October 2001.

Camelot's legal team, led by David Pannick QC, will claim that the commission's decision last month to start exclusive talks with Sir Richard Branson's The People's Lottery was unfair and legally unjustified.

The commission stunned Camelot by stating it had serious doubts about the very close involvement with its bid of the American software supplier GTech, after its executives covered up a serious software error that hit thousands of small-prize payouts.

Sources also said that GTech may now launch its own action against the commission because of the damage caused to the company's reputation.