Camelot Group, the UK’s National Lottery operator, has released a statement regarding the UK Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) decision to raise the minimum age of National Lottery play from 16 to 18 years.

Following a review of the Gambling Act 2005, the DCMS announced the government would be raising the National Lottery age limit to 18 to help protect young people from gambling-related harm in response to the significantly growing trend towards online play and instant win games.

With a deadline of implementation of October 2021, the government plans to roll out the new age limit quickly, with online lottery sales to 16 and 17 year olds banned from April 2021.

A Camelot spokesperson has provided the National Lottery operator’s thoughts on DCMS’ decision to raise the age limit of the lottery, stating that it fully supports the government’s decision to raise the minimum age to play.

The spokesperson said: “We’ve said all along that we would fully support any decision made by the government to raise the minimum age to play.

“Now that a decision has been made to raise the age to 18 by October 2021, we’ll be doing everything we can to implement all of the changes that will be necessary as quickly as possible, while ensuring that we maintain the very high standards demanded of The National Lottery.

“We’ve already started this work in preparation and, subject to receiving the appropriate licence variations and waivers from the Gambling Commission, we’re aiming to complete all of the changes that are needed in our online channels by early April 2021 and, in our retail channel, over the course of the summer – well in advance of the change in law.”