THE National Lottery has been accused of "trying to cash in on misery" as it was revealed ticket prices are to double to £2 from this autumn.
Operator Camelot has announced the price of a ticket will increase from the current £1. The increase is the first since the lottery was launched in 1994.
The move prompted anger from anti-poverty campaigners and the Church of Scotland, with research showing people from less affluent backgrounds spend a disproportionate amount of money on tickets. It said those affected would be among the groups finding it most difficult in the current economic climate.
Rev Sally Foster-Fulton, convener of the Church of Scotland's Society Council, said: "The continued popularity of the lottery is a sign of the vast inequality in our society.
"It's an indictment of the policies of austerity that lottery ticket sales have increased and it is a concern lottery companies are trying to cash in on misery."
Paisley and Renfrewshire Labour MP Jim Sheridan also criticised Camelot and called for it to level out the prizes instead of charging more money.
He said: "The National Lottery has become a great British institution, but the top prizes of £5 million far exceed what we ever expected.
"Nobody needs that amount of money, but thousands of people could do without the price increase to play."
A 2009 report by public theology think-tank Theos showed skilled manual workers were significantly more likely to play Lotto than managerial and professional workers. It added that "insufficient funding" was being invested back into deprived communities despite the higher play rate among the less affluent.
A spokesman for Poverty Alliance Scotland added: "It is well established that people with lower incomes are more likely to play the lottery, so this price increase will have a greater impact on them.
"The lottery does support a great deal of work that tackles poverty and its effects.
"However, there needs to be a greater effort to ensure the monies distributed through the arts, sport and heritage are better targeted on low-income communities, allowing those who contribute most to really benefit from lottery cash."
A spokesman for the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations said: "It's a surprisingly big increase and it obviously will have an impact on sales which will potentially have a knock-on effect on what money goes to charities and good causes in Scotland."
Camelot said it plans to make changes to prizes, with the prize for matching three numbers rising from £10 to £25 and four numbers increasing from £60 to £100. The prize pot for matching five numbers will drop by £500 to £1000, while the reward for matching five numbers and the bonus number will halve to £50,000.
Camelot claimed player demographics are almost an exact match with the UK population and most customers view it as a "harmless flutter".
A spokesman added: "Buying a National Lottery ticket is optional and it's entirely up to our players to decide whether they want to buy a ticket for any of our games.
"Lotto remains the biggest game in our portfolio and is essential to the long-term health of the National Lottery and the money it generates for National Lottery good causes. Our players raise over £30m each and every week for these good causes – money that is changing lives for the better for people and communities the length and breadth of the UK.
"It's worth noting the Church of Scotland has itself benefited from around £2m in National Lottery funding, while Mr Sheridan's own constituency has received over £12m."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article