£600m Jackpot For Charities As Lotto Recovers From Lockdown

National Lottery chiefs are to give struggling UK charities up to £600million as ticket sales roar back from lockdown.

- David Pilditch

Operator Camelot saw lottery sales plummet by around 30 per cent in the early weeks of the Covid-19 crisis.

And it has emerged bosses feared EuroMillions draws would have to be cancelled after Spain banned the sale of all lottery tickets.

But Camelot chief executive Nigel Railton says a record-breaking £7.9billion in ticket sales for the year to March 31 has almost brought them back to pre-coronavirus levels.

He said the comeback was spurred by soaring online demand.

Digital ticket sales increased by more than 30 per cent at the peak of the pandemic.

Camelot has now vowed to hand out £600million in National Lottery funding to help hard-hit charities tackle the impact of Covid-19.