Camelot cutbacks

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The lottery operator Camelot has cut 80 jobs in a retrenchment brought about by its lack of success in reversing its sales decline since the relaunch of the lottery in May. Staff cuts plus closure of the company’s regional centres for prize payouts is designed to knock 10% off operating costs. Camelot has also paid off one of its board directors, Sue Slipman, who was brought in originally to take charge of corporate social responsibility and clean up the company’s ‘fat cat’ image in the late 1990s. Slipman was the main point of liaison between the company, DCMS and the lottery distributors. After five years of continuous decline in lottery sales, the company is under great pressure to come up with something new. It will run its Thunderball game on Wednesdays from 23 October, and has timetabled plans to introduce a daily game, an interactive game and a web-based game. It is also talking to the regulator at the moment about introducing a Euro-game in 2004, which the outgoing NLC chair, Harriet Spicer, described as ‘a potential step-change’.