National Lottery Playstation

Retailers have improved their compliance in terms of asking for proof of age when selling National Lottery tickets.

National lottery warning

According to the latest mystery shopping test carried out by lottery operator Camelot, 89% of retailers visited in 2016 correctly asked for proof of age on the first occasion - up three percentage points on 2015.

The company conducted 11,600 such visits last year as part of its commitment to ensure that under-16s were not buying the tickets.

Camelot is providing retailers with a leaflet and terminal sticker with top tips on acceptable forms of identification, what to do if a customer appears to be underage or playing too much and ways of ensuring all staff are correctly trained. “To play any National Lottery game, you must be 16 or older. Obviously many retailers already have their own underage policies in place - such as Challenge 21 or 25 - but we’re doing all we can to provide support and guidance for National Lottery products specifically. So, while ensuring people under 16 aren’t playing our games is vital, it’s also important that retailers look out for people who might be playing too much,” said Camelot’s head of retail, James Pearson.

“We hope that the leaflet and terminal sticker provide retailers with some easy-to-use top tips - and we’ll also be conducting telephone calls and face-to-face visits to talk through what it means in their individual store. We’re delighted with the 89% pass-rate and I’d personally like to thank all of our retailers for this achievement. I hope that we can all work together to do even better in 2017.”

Camelot’s mystery shopping programme has been in place for over a decade and uses young people who are over 16, but who look younger. If a retailer fails a mystery shopping visit on three occasions, their National Lottery terminal will be suspended and is likely to be removed.