Sell a Lotto more tickets - or else

SHOPKEEPERS who fail to sell enough Lotto tickets face the axe from next month, lottery operator Camelot has warned. Most of the 25,000 retailers with a Lotto terminal have a target of selling tickets worth at least £1,500 every week. But around 500 stores were falling short - and were given about six months to get their act together.

Those that had failed would be dumped from next month, Camelot said, with their terminals going to one of the 80,000 retailers on the waiting list.

'In most cases, if they are still under-performing we will take their terminal away, but we would consider each individual case,' a spokeswoman said.

Camelot replaced all its terminals after it was awarded the second seven-year licence to run the National Lottery, which was relaunched as Lotto at the end of April in an effort to halt falling sales. Sales fell last year to £4.83bn from just over £4.98bn, the fourth consecutive annual decline.