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National Lottery players can now buy tickets through their mobile phones, operator Camelot has announced. (BBC Report)
The move forms part of a pledge made by Camelot when it won back its licence to run the lottery to use interactive media to sell tickets.
It already sells some £1.5m worth each week through the internet and interactive TV.
Players can now send a text message with their numbers to enter the Lotto, EuroMillions and Daily Play games.
Players must register online or over the telephone by providing debit card details.
Payment is deducted from a player's personal account.
The online tickets system was extended six months ago to interactive television through Sky Digital.
Camelot claims the National Lottery website is now the biggest online sales point for a single product.
More than 600,000 people have registered to play online with sales averaging £500,000 a week.
The launch of the mobile phone service coincides with figures showing ticket sales for the last six months were up 4.7%.
Ian Milligan, commercial director of Manchester-based mobile phone lottery Million-2-1, said he hoped Camelot would develop the new scheme to introduce interactive games to increase profits.
Mr Milligan, a former director of Camelot, told BBC Radio 4 Today: "If all that happens is the existing games go on mobile, while it's convenient, it will be a lot of switching of business.
"The real opportunity here is to introduce new types of game that are particularly relevant to that new channel of distribution."
'Proper policing'
He said it was "possibly one area" where Camelot would consider using outside partners, specialising in mobile phone technology, to help grow the business and increase charity funds.
It was "absolutely critical" that the new scheme should be well policed and this would be done with a credit card registration system together with the use of databases with age checks, he went on.
"One of the other areas that's important is whether the mobile phone operators change their approach with lotteries versus other games," Mr Milligan added.
"At the moment, mobile phone operators take more than 30% of the take, if you like, after VAT.
"We'd hope to see the mobile operators give on that and make sure it's a level playing field, for both the National Lottery but also other types of lottery operators as well."
Users of the new service can text the name of the game they want to play together with their chosen numbers to 61111.
Each message costs 20p to send.
Separately, Camelot announced a healthy increase in the value of ticket sales in the first quarter of the year.
Sales rose 5.7% to £1.16bn between April 1 and June 26, £63m ahead of the same period last year.
Average weekly sales totalled £92m.
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Posted: 2004-10-14 02:32
