UK Lotto Changes – The Player’s Reactions So Far

Since the news broke yesterday afternoon that there will be some changes coming to the UK Lotto, we have been keeping a close eye on the reactions coming in from players. In case you have been living under the rock for the last 24 hours, the changes include raising the Match 3 prize from £10 to £25, increasing the minimum jackpots and adding a brand new Lotto Raffle offering 50 prizes of £20,000 per draw. However, as well as these positive changes, there are some changes which are being greeted with fury.

The confirmation that the price of a UK Lotto ticket will be increasing from £1 to £2 per ticket has sparked anger amongst UK players, who feel they are being taken advantage of by UK Lotto organisers, Camelot, at the worst economic time. Also, the reduction of the prizes on offer for matching five numbers / five numbers and the bonus ball has also got a thumbs down from players.

We took a look around the UK Lotto Facebook group, Twitter page and on comments made on news articles on sites like Lottery.co.uk to briefly sum up just what player’s initial reactions are.

“I agree with the new changes. The Euro Raffle is brilliant and as I said in a comment somewhere else here a £10 gets nowhere now, maybe in 1994 but not now.” Facebook User.

“Times are hard, people are struggling and you go and do this…..disgraceful. The people who need the money the most will be the ones playing less, or now not playing at all. I won’t be playing any more.” Facebook User.

“If I doubled my prices I’d be out of business as would any business. I will now cut back and only buy half of the tickets that I used to.” Facebook User

“My son and I occasionally buy a lottery ticket but never again. Two pounds is too much – a pound change from whatever else you bought and used for a ticket, is ok. Two is not ok. Their sales will go down for sure.” News comment from Daily Mail

“Not too impressed about this lottery price increase!! £2 a ticket bit steep!!” Twitter User

As these few sample comments indicate, there is a lot of talk across social networks claiming that Camelot are imposing an involuntary – and greedy – “poor tax” on their player base – and national newspapers have even opted to run with headlines confirming this, which is just doing more to fan the flames.

Players are now threatening to boycott the lottery when the new changes are bought in, and there is even a petition calling for the National Lottery to stop the increase. However, in the interest of balance we would like to point out that the National Lottery’s official defence for the increase is based on actual feedback from players who have requested more prizes. They posted the following on their Facebook page, to explain their decision:

“We would like to thank everyone for their comments so far. The wide variety of views expressed demonstrates how passionate you all are about Lotto and continues the discussions we have been having with players for some time now. All of our research has been conducted through representative samples of our player base of millions, who have told us they want Lotto to give them more – especially more excitement and more prizes. We are confident that the combination of changes will re-energise the nation’s favourite lottery game. We recognise some of you are worried about the price rise, but please remember even more is going back into prizes, which represents better value for you, the players. In addition, our regulator, The National Lottery Commission, who have to approve all changes to lottery games, have given this the go-ahead. We are always keen to hear from our players about changes we make to games, so thank you once again for your feedback.”

Whether players manage to convince Camelot to back down on their plans will remain to be seen. In the meantime, here’s a bit of nostalgia for you – the first ever UK Lotto draw back in 1994, when the ticket prize was set at £1.00.