The National Lottery of Ireland has swayed to profitability once again after registering falling sales and fighting a privatisation process which brought a lot of controversy for several years. The National Lottery has also faced certain difficulties as a result of a change brought to its playing format.
Now, the Premier Lotteries Ireland-run franchise has reported a 12% rise in its turnover, with the latter reaching €750 million in 2016 thanks to increased interest of local players to Lotto tickets and scratch cards, as well as an increase in sales through the National Lottery’s online channel.
Latest Results and Success Drivers
According to recent report, draw-based games, including the main lottery draw that takes place twice a week and the EuroMillions draw on Friday, accounted for sales amounting to approximately €530 million. Scratch cards sales and online instant win games sales, on the other hand, reached a record high of €220 million.
The overall prize pool shared by players amounted to €422 million in 2016, with the largest jackpot being estimated to €13.8 million.
As mentioned above, the strong performance of Irish National Lottery operations is considered to have appeared as a result of a new online channel and mobile application roll-out. Their introduction has resulted in a massive 50% increase in the number of players who registered to play online to 387,000.
On the other hand, the online channels of the National Lottery registered a 77% increase in its sales, which reached a total of €40.7 million last year. What is more important, the online sales increase did not hurt the National Lottery off-line shop sales, which also marked a boost of approximately 10%.
The increased sales generated by the National Lottery helped it also boost the money it redirected to good causes to €213 million. In comparison, €188 million were given away by the Irish National Lottery for good causes.
Playing Format Changes and Privatisation Process
As far as the recent privatisation process faced by the National Lottery is concerned, it has been long seen as a threat to the Lottery’s retail operations. Local retailers have shared they were afraid that the National Lottery’s online channel opening agreed as part of the above-mentioned privatisation process would hit their trade hard.
Now, retail sales not only seem to have not been hurt by any recent changes’ brought to the playing format of the Ireland’s National Lottery, but also improved. Under the new playing format, ticket prices were boosted by 50 cent per line, and two more numbers were added to the initial 45-number matrix. The change was implemented in order to deliver bigger jackpots which, of course, were aimed at attracting more players to the National Lottery’s services.
At first, the changes in the Irish National Lottery playing format were faced with controversial feelings, because similar changes, including the addition of 10 new numbers to the original Lotto matrix, were rolled out by the sister company of Premier Lotteries Ireland in the UK – Camelot Group – and they did not only failed to see the desired results, but also triggered a sales decline.
Currently, Premier Lotteries Ireland holds a 20-year license to operate the Irish Lottery. The license was sold to the company three years ago at the prize of €405 million. The increased sales of the operator also boosted its operating profit, which rose by 121%, reaching €16.4 million in 2016.
- Author
Daniel Williams
