Camelot governance calls for strategic review following 2016/17 ticket sales slowdown

Jo Taylor – Camelot

Updating the market and stakeholders, Camelot UK the operating company of The National Lottery has confirmed that it will carry out a ‘strategic review’ relating to its slowdown of ticket sales.

The operator recorded National Lottery ticket sales for the 2016/17 financial year (1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017) of £6,925.3 million, representing an 8.8% decline set against 2015/2016 record sales of  £7,595.2 million.

The strategic review has been issued by the Camelot Board and will be carried out by Camelot Global CEO Nigel Railton, who took over group leadership of the company following the departure of Andy Duncan last April.

Camelot details that during its 2016/17 financial year the National Lottery delivered £1,628.0 million (excluding investment returns) for Good Causes representing more than £30 million every week.

However, the lottery operator detailed that its ‘return for Good Causes’ was hindered by ‘disappointing performance across The National Lottery’s range of draw-based games – especially on Lotto’.

Camelot specified that consumer confidence had been dented by a ‘very long and statistically unexpected rollover series in quick succession at the beginning of 2016’.

Its leading EuroMillions game has also suffered a ‘soft first six months’ for 2016/17, howecer the operator notes that performance has improved during  the second half of the year following the game changes introduced in late September.

Updating the media Jo Taylor Chairman of Camelot commented on the review: “Achieving the fourth-highest ever sales, creating a record number of lottery millionaires and raising over £30 million every week for Good Causes is no mean feat. However, sales in 2016/17 fell well short of where we’d like them to be – and that’s largely down to a disappointing year for draw-based games and Lotto in particular. There’s clearly work to be done to re-engage players and address the performance of our draw-based games – and this is one key area that Nigel is focusing on as part of the wider review he is conducting.

“Given the current climate of economic uncertainty and increasing competition from the gambling sector, we expect 2017/18 to be equally, if not more, challenging for The National Lottery. It will therefore take time to turn things around and I anticipate a further sales decline this year. I am, however, confident that the review will enable us to put the business on the best possible footing to get back into growth – and so deliver even more for our players and the millions of people for whom National Lottery funding is so crucial over the remainder of this licence period.”


Source: SBC News