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Post-Lottery, charities rely on scratchcards to boost their funds, so Littlewoods' cull of them will be a blow.
Littlewoods Lotteries is "reviewing" its scratchcard business (MW May 8) in what is effectively a spring-clean of charity scratchcard games.
Some games will be withdrawn, launch plans for others are being scrapped while some charities, including The Samaritans and Help the Aged, are now being forced to look for fresh sources of fundraising.
Littlewoods' acquisition of UKCL in December brought the number of charities on its books to 56. And it is this acquisition which is given as the reason for the rationalisation.
But the collapse of the scratchcard market - sales have fallen from a weekly 1995 high of 44 million when Camelot launched Instants, which still account for 90 per cent of sales, to about 14 million- is the background to the Littlewoods cull.
"The number of charities we will be able to help in the future will not be as many as in the past," says a Littlewoods spokesman who insists that the "charities are quite happy about everything that is going on".
A written statement from the company says: "It is anticipated that over the next few months some of the remaining games will be withdrawn because they have reached the...