Allwyn may review its scratchcard sales policy after retailers suggested a player card system could better support healthy play limits during a recent event in Edinburgh.

The National Lottery operator hosted a breakfast event at the National Museum of Scotland to thank Scottish retailers for their contribution to ticket sales and fundraising for good causes.

Nathalie Fullerton, of One Stop Dumbarton Road in Glasgow, told Better Retailing that while the idea of increasing scratchcard sales was discussed at the event, retailers raised concerns about the current sales cap of ten scratchcards per customer.

Player card suggestion

“If people do have a gambling problem, there’s nothing to stop you going to ten shops and buying ten scratchcards,” she said. “If they introduce a card that you have to have to purchase National Lottery products – at least that way, retailers can say, ‘no, you can’t buy any more because you’ve already bought ten today.’”

Fullerton pointed out that the healthy play policy does not prevent customers from visiting multiple shops to get around the limit.

She said: “It’s a double-edged sword – they’re asking us to uplift the sales of scratchcards, but you’re telling us we can’t sell more than ten to a customer for healthy play.”

She added that she put the suggestion to Allwyn chair Justin King, who said it was something that could be considered in the future.

Allwyn warns stores of upcoming ’36 hour’ National Lottery outage

A spokesperson for Allwyn said: “Last year, we introduced a limit of 10 scratchcards per store visit as part of our comprehensive strategy to protect players and operate The National Lottery in a socially responsible way.

“Part of the rationale for this is that creating a break in play is important in helping players to consider how much they are playing and spending. We’re continually looking for ways to make this as easy as possible for our retail partners to enforce and really do appreciate all of their co-operation in this.”

Local Retail Champions award to return

Allwyn has also confirmed it will bring back its Local Retail Champions awards for a second year.

Inaugural winners Natalie and Martin Lightfoot, owners of Londis Solo Convenience in Glasgow, attended the breakfast event. The pair were crowned national winners in December, receiving £5,000 in cash and a social value store makeover worth up to £20,000.

The initiative is funded by Allwyn’s dedicated Social Value Fund – a £1m annual commitment to support the environmentally responsible operation of the National Lottery.

The spokesperson added: “Our Local Retail Champions programme last year was a huge success and we’re still hearing some amazing stories about how our winners have been using their prizes on store and community initiatives.

“We will absolutely be running the initiative again later this year.”

Read more: Middlesbrough retailer wins £10,000 in Allwyn prize draw