The National Lottery had total sales of €578m last year, up 3.4% on 2003.
Sales of instant games were strong at €160.2m, up €13.7m or 9.3% from the previous year. The new EuroMillions game also had a strong start with turnover of €5.6m in its first 13 weeks since its launch.
Sales of the main Lotto game were marginally down by 1.5% to €275.6m last year, while Lotto Plus sales were up 3.1% to €105.7m. Lotto 5-4-3-2-1 sales grew by 7.5% to €10.8m.
TellyBingo generated sales of €19.3m, up marginally from 2003's figure.
The Lottery returned €305m to players in prizes and €191m was raised for good causes. This brings to over €2.2 billion the total funds raised by the National Lottery since 1987 for distribution by the Government to good causes throughout the country.
17 new individual millionaires were created as a result of winning Lotto jackpots last year.
Ray Bates, the National Lottery Director, said the group has three priorities for 2005. 'We plan to continue to grow our core business, to develop the market for EuroMillions and to prepare ground for the introduction of new media distribution channels by which existing and new players will be able to play new and existing National Lottery games,' he detailed.
