What retailers received across the UK
Across the whole National Lottery, the Gambling Commission says 3p from every £1 of sales went to retailer commission in the year ended 31 March 2025. In total, that came to £240.5 million.
Lottery Money Explained • Retailers
Ever wondered what the shop actually gets when you buy a lottery ticket? Retailers earn commission on ticket sales, and some can earn extra for paying prizes or selling a big winning ticket. The important bit is that the commission they receive is not the same as the profit they keep.
The short answer
Across the whole National Lottery, the Gambling Commission says 3p from every £1 of sales went to retailer commission in the year ended 31 March 2025. In total, that came to £240.5 million.
That 3% is the overall result for the National Lottery as a whole. It mixes together different games and different ways of buying tickets, so you should not read it as a flat rate paid on every ticket sold in a shop.
Where Allwyn has published an exact rate, you can see the difference. A shop gets 20p when it sells a £4 UK Powerball line, which is 5%. Selected retailers in the new £10 When It's Gold Outside Scratchcard pilot get 60p per card, or 6%.
The UK National Lottery retail network
In the latest complete Gambling Commission breakdown, National Lottery sales were £7.8863 billion and retailers received £240.5 million in commission. Put simply, that works out at about 3p from every £1 spent across the lottery as a whole.
This is the total across the National Lottery, not what one supermarket, newsagent or convenience store made.
Allwyn reported 43,500 retail partners around the UK just before UK Powerball launched in July 2026.
A busy supermarket may sell far more tickets than a small village shop. Location, opening hours, footfall and the games people buy all matter, so dividing £240.5 million by the number of retailers would give you a misleading “average”.
Enter your town, village, city or postcode and we’ll show you the National Lottery shops listed in that area. You can then open any result in Google Maps for directions and current opening information.
Based on more than 43,000 official retailer records.From national data to a shop-level benchmark
Allwyn reported £8.1 billion of National Lottery sales in 2025, with £4.1 billion bought digitally. That suggests roughly £4.0 billion was sold through shops. If you spread that evenly across 43,500 retail partners, you get about £92,000 of lottery sales per shop per year, or around £1,770 a week. Real shops will sit above or below that figure — it is a useful benchmark, not a published average. If you simply want to find a shop, you can search National Lottery retailers by location.
For this example, we used about 40%–70% of the UK-wide benchmark. A small shop with fewer customers or a smaller local catchment could reasonably sit somewhere in this range.
This is simply what you get if you divide the estimated £4.0 billion of shop sales equally between 43,500 retailers. In real life, sales are not shared evenly.
For this example, we used around 2.5–5 times the UK-wide benchmark to show what a much busier supermarket or convenience store could look like.
| Retailer type | Possible weekly lottery sales | Possible annual lottery sales | How we worked it out |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small local newsagent | ~£700–£1,250 | ~£36k–£65k | 40%–70% of the simple UK-wide benchmark. |
| All-retailer benchmark | ~£1,770 | ~£92k | Estimated £4.0bn of shop sales divided by 43,500 retailers. |
| Busy convenience / supermarket | ~£2,650–£4,400 | ~£138k–£230k | 1.5–2.5 times the benchmark to show a busier store. |
| Very busy supermarket | ~£4,400–£8,800 | ~£230k–£460k | 2.5–5 times the benchmark to show a very high-footfall store. |
What the shop gets from a sale
There is not one public commission rate that you can apply to every National Lottery product. But where Allwyn has published an exact figure, we can show you exactly what the retailer gets.
If you buy one £4 UK Powerball line in a shop, Allwyn says the retailer gets 20p commission.
Selected shops in this new £10 Scratchcard pilot get 60p per card sold. That does not mean every Scratchcard pays 6%.
This is the overall National Lottery result for a full year. It is useful context, but it is not the rate on every individual ticket.
| Example | Retail sale | Published commission | Effective share | Scope |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK Powerball | £4 line | 20p | 5% | Published rate for this specific in-store product. |
| When It's Gold Outside Scratchcard pilot | £10 card | 60p | 6% | Specific selected-store pilot launching from September 2026. |
| National Lottery FY2024/25 | £1 total portfolio sales | 3p | 3% rounded | UK-wide result across all National Lottery sales; not a rate for every ticket. |
| U.S. lotteries | Varies | Typically 5%–8% | 5%–8% | Typical NASPL range; the actual rate depends on the state and lottery product. |
When a shop sells a big winner
Yes, sometimes. Under Allwyn's Share the Win programme, a qualifying retailer can receive an extra reward if it sells a National Lottery ticket or Scratchcard worth £50,000 or more — as long as the winner agrees to publicity.
The published starting reward for a qualifying high-tier win of £50,000 or more.
A larger reward for qualifying wins in the middle band below £1 million.
The top published Share the Win reward when a qualifying retailer sells a £1 million+ winner.
What the shop actually keeps
This is the part that is easy to miss. If a shop gets 20p commission from a ticket sale, that 20p is revenue coming into the business. The retailer still has all the normal costs of running the shop.
You pay for the lottery ticket in the shop, just as you would buy any other product.
The retailer receives the commission that applies to that sale — for example 20p on a £4 UK Powerball line.
They still have staff, rent, security, training, administration and all the other costs of running a shop.
If you pop in for a lottery ticket and also buy milk, a newspaper or something else, the retailer benefits from more than the lottery commission alone.
Try the numbers yourself
If you want to see what the numbers look like at different sales levels, choose an example below and enter the amount of lottery sales. We keep exact published rates separate from broader industry or whole-lottery figures.
UK Powerball: a shop gets 20p commission for each £4 line it sells in store. That is money into the business, not guaranteed profit.
U.S. lottery retailers
The U.S. works differently because there is no single national retailer deal. Each state or lottery jurisdiction can set its own terms. NASPL says retailer commission typically falls somewhere around 5% to 8% of ticket sales.
That 5%–8% figure is a general NASPL range across different lotteries and jurisdictions.
NASPL says some retailer arrangements include compensation for cashing winning tickets.
Depending on the state, a retailer may get an extra reward for selling a major winning ticket or hitting sales targets.
Where the retailer can benefit
This is the basic payment the retailer gets for selling eligible lottery products.
Some retailer arrangements include payment connected with helping customers claim or cash prizes.
Depending on the scheme, a shop may get bonuses for major winners, retailer competitions or sales performance.
Lottery customers can also buy groceries, newspapers or other products. That extra footfall can matter even though it never appears in the lottery commission figures.
To know the actual profit, you would need the shop's own income and costs. Lottery commission on its own cannot tell you that.
A qualifying retailer can receive £10,000 after selling a £1 million+ National Lottery winner, subject to the Share the Win rules.
Frequently asked questions
These are the questions that usually come up once you start looking at what a lottery shop actually earns.
There is no one figure you can apply to every shop. Across the whole National Lottery, retailers received £240.5 million in commission in the year ended 31 March 2025, which works out at about 3p per £1 of total sales. A busy supermarket can sell far more lottery products than a small local shop, so what an individual retailer earns can be very different.
No. The 3p-per-£1 figure is what the numbers look like across the whole National Lottery for FY2024/25. It is not a flat 3% paid on every ticket you buy in a shop. Individual products can have different retailer rates.
Allwyn says a retailer gets 20p when it sells a £4 UK Powerball line in store. So on that specific product, the retailer commission is 5% of the ticket price.
No. That 20p is specifically the commission on a UK Powerball line sold in a physical shop. If you buy online through The National Lottery website or app, an independent retailer has not made the sale.
For the selected-store £10 When It's Gold Outside Scratchcard pilot, Allwyn says participating retailers get 60p for each card sold. That works out at 6% of the £10 price.
No. The 60p figure only applies to that specific £10 pilot. You should not assume every Scratchcard pays the retailer 6%; other games can have different terms.
Yes, in some cases. Allwyn's Share the Win scheme can reward a qualifying retailer after it sells a National Lottery ticket or Scratchcard worth £50,000 or more, provided the winner agrees to publicity. The published rewards are £2,000, £5,000 or £10,000 depending on the prize band.
Under the current published Share the Win structure, a qualifying retailer can receive £10,000 if it sells a National Lottery prize of £1 million or more and the scheme conditions are met.
No. Commission is money coming into the shop, not the amount the owner necessarily keeps. The retailer still has wages, rent, security, admin and other running costs. On the other hand, someone who comes in for a lottery ticket may also buy other things, so the relationship can be worth more than the commission alone.
Allwyn said in July 2026 that there were 43,500 retail partners across the UK as it prepared for the UK Powerball launch.
They can. Retailer arrangements can include payment connected with handling prizes. The exact amount depends on the retailer agreement and the type of claim, so there is not one simple prize-payment fee we can apply to every shop.
It depends on the state or lottery jurisdiction. NASPL says retailer commission typically ranges from 5% to 8% of ticket sales, and some retailers can also receive extra payments for things such as cashing prizes, selling a major winner or hitting sales targets.
No. The 5%–8% figure is a broad NASPL range, not one national Powerball rate. The retailer terms depend on the state or lottery jurisdiction where the ticket is sold.
Because people still use them. You can buy with cash, check a ticket in person, deal with some prizes and pick up a ticket during a normal shopping trip. For the retailer, lottery customers can also bring extra footfall into the store. Allwyn was still describing 43,500 retail partners as a central part of the UK network in 2026.
Where the numbers come from
We only call a commission rate “exact” when a current source actually publishes it. For the shop-sales examples, we started with Allwyn's published 2025 total sales, digital sales and retailer count, then used those figures to create simple scenarios. Where a number is our estimate rather than a figure published by Tesco, Sainsbury's, Allwyn or another source, we say so.