National Lottery provider Camelot has announced that £1.88bn was raised for charities amid record breaking sales during the Covid-19 pandemic.

For the financial year 2020/21 Camelot made sales worth £8.37m. This is the first time UK National Lottery sales have passed the £8bn mark.

With unclaimed prizes factored in the sales represents £36m to charities each week.

Camelot says that more than £1bn in funding was handed to good causes responding to the impact of Covid-19.

“Without this money, many organisations would have ceased to function,” said Camelot chairman Hugh Robertson.

Camelot chief executive Nigel Railton added: “In what has been an extraordinarily challenging year, The National Lottery has demonstrated incredible resilience and flexibility to achieve this record performance. These results are a culmination of all of the work we’ve done over the last few years in the areas of brand, games, retail and digital.

Camelot has run the UK’s National Lottery since 1994. Its current licence is due to expire at the end of 2023.

Earlier this year a rival bid to run the National Lottery was launched by children’s charity Barnardo’s and Italian company Sisal.

Four years ago the National Audit Office found that that Camelot's profits had increased proportionately greater than rises in sales and money for good causes.

Camelot says that 1% of its sales are retained as profit under the terms of its licence and 4% are spent on operating costs.

“The National Lottery continued to return around 95% of all sales revenue to winners and society – delivering for everyone,” said Camelot in announcing its latest financial results.

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