I had another retailer on the helpline moaning about Scratchcards. He says there used to be only 80 cards in a pack and so, when Camelot took the money three weeks after activation, it wasn’t too difficult cashflow-wise. Now he says there are 250-300 cards in a pack, but he is still getting charged for them after three weeks. He says Camelot says it’s down to their popularity but today he had to pay for four packs = £860. He says: “It’s too much in one go. It used to be more manageable.”

He asked to be anonymous because he feared Camelot reprisal. I told him that would never happen but, as it was a general query, his identity doesn’t really matter.

I put his complaint to Camelot and a spokesman replied: “Just to be clear, we haven’t increased the size of Scratchcard packs for a couple of years, and even then it was only a small increase. As we have a variety of different priced Scratchcards – ranging from £1 to £10 – pack sizes differ; they can be as low as 25 per pack for our £10 offering. The maximum number of we currently have available is 180 (for £1 Scratchcards) – so much fewer than the 250-300 stated by the retailer.

“In terms of payment, we offer two options to ensure retailers have a reasonable amount of time to sell through their stock. They either pay 30 days after activation, or when 65% of the guaranteed low-end prizes in a pack have been won, whichever is sooner. Retailers also have an additional option of settling the pack at any time they wish within that period.”

Here endeth the Scratchcards masterclass.

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