British national lottery operator Camelot Group reported six months of ticket sales from April 1 to September 27, the second-highest median total since the lottery launched in 1994.

Camelot said ticket sales in the first half of the 2014-15 financial year were about 3.5 billion pounds (4.5 billion euros/5.6 billion dollars), up about 158 million pounds from the same period last year.

The operator said strong growth in lotto and instant games, which it relaunched last year, boosted ticket sales, with the latter breaking several records during the period due to higher prize payments and the rollout of up to 10,000 standalone handsets.

In October, the price of the lottery doubled to £2.

Camelot noted that total ticket sales would have been much higher had Euromillion been a big success, as it was in the first half of last year.

National lottery sales totaled over £6.7 billion. 파워볼게임