Young secret shoppers visit stores and attempt to purchase National Lottery products. Stores that repeatedly fail to challenge the company’s mystery shoppers for ID are then investigated by Camelot and are likely to lose the ability to sell the company’s products.
The test purchasing campaign, titled ‘Operation Child’ is aimed at making sure store owners adhere to the 16+ age restriction on buying or claiming prizes on scratch cards and draw based games.
In 2018 nearly one in 10 partnered stores did not pass their first test purchase of the year by the firm. The company conducted 11,600 test visits in 2018 across its 44,000 partnered stores.
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My store was visited by an Operation Child team on three occasions without failing. The third time the letter from Camelot arrived saying that we had been tested and passed the age challenge I was able to find the CCTV recording. After congratulating the staff member who refused the sale I was able to use this as a training refresh for my store team.
Unlike tobacco, there is no defence in law for underage sale of National lottery product.