More than a thousand small newsagents that have failed to sell enough National Lottery tickets are in danger of having their ticket printing machines removed.

Camelot, the lottery operator, is beginning the process of pulling lottery terminals from retail outlets that have failed to sell more than 1,400 tickets a week.

The National Lottery has been a godsend to retailers

Sue Slipman, Camelot

Retailers will not only lose the commission on every ticket or scratchcard sold but also extra revenue from customers coming in to do the lottery.

The move comes after sales for the national lottery games have fallen for the fourth year running, according to Camelot.

And it also follows a multi-million advertising campaign to relaunch the lottery as Lotto.

About another 80,000 retailers would like to have the chance to have machines.

Sales boost

Camelot's director of external affairs Sue Slipman said some newsagents had not done enough to promote the Lotto and the good causes that it funds.

She told the BBC: "The National Lottery has been a godsend to retailers. It has given them every opportunity to get people in.

Many outlets have failed to sell enough tickets

"It has given them a really high spot from which they can organise.

"Clearly there are lots of other people who are desperate to have a terminal because they want that opportunity too."

Retailers get 5% commission for every ticket or scratchcard sold.

And they gain about �7,500 in revenue from customers coming in their shop to buy a ticket.

Virginia Eastman, from Five Live Money, said Camelot were only now looking to redistribute the machines after initially not taking stock of which outlets were selling the most Lottery tickets.

Declining sales

Camelot reported in May that there had been a 3% decline in the past financial year to �4.83bn from just over �4.98bn the previous year.

Sales of instant scratchcards increased during the year but were offset by the biggest drop in lottery ticket sales since the game was launched in 1994.

Camelot has already said it will spend �72m over the next year marketing its new Lotto image.

Licence delays

Ticket sales slumped by 6.9% in the first six months of the financial year.

Camelot blamed this on the delay in the bidding process for the second licence to run the Lottery.

In the second half of the year, the decline in sales of the same tickets was 1.2%.

Scratchcard sales rose by 5.9% to �579m for the first time since their launch in 1995.

Dianne Thompson, chief executive of Camelot said earlier this year that players of the lottery draw would be lucky to win �10 and the odds of hitting the jackpot were one in 14 million.

Ms Thompson said the only way to halt declining sales in newly named Lotto was to make the game fun.

But Camelot said her comments had been taken out of context with the odds of winning �10 one in 57.