The National Lottery will lose one of its main outlets as hundreds of British post offices stop selling tickets and scratchcards.
The Post Office last year ceased its group contract with the National Lottery and now the branches themselves can decide whether to continue.
Now run by Allwyn, the National Lottery is losing - at the latest count - 900 of the 5,800 post office branches that used to stock tickets and scratchcards. Those 900 have not signed up with Allwyn to take the products.
The National Federation of SubPostmasters is quoted by the BBC as blaming scratchcards for the fall in the appeal of the products as the Post Office will no longer pay for the cards and each branch has to do so instead.
For many of them this makes the National Lottery simply not worth it. Allwyn dictates that outlets must stock both the tickets and the scratchcards.
Allwyn took over the National Lottery contracts from Camelot with a 10-year contract from last Thursday.
