Camelot generated £864.1m for its National Lottery Good Causes in the first half of this financial year, almost £90m less than the same period last year.

This fall comes alongside a drop in National Lottery ticket sales of £217m on last year's figures for the first six months of the 2013/14 financial year, to £3.31bn.

Yet Andy Duncan, managing director of Camelot UK Lotteries Ltd, said he was “pleased” with the half-year results.

He continued: “During these challenging economic times, we’re extremely proud to have returned £864m to National Lottery projects and more than double that figure in prize money to our players during this period.

“This shows we’re delivering on the National Lottery’s promise to be truly life-changing for both winners and society, and we are confident that the exciting plans we have in place will continue to drive sales over the second half of the year.”

Camelot attributed tihis year's fall in sales to an exceptional year last year, boosted by the Olympics. It highlighted the EuroMillions 100 UK Millionaires Raffle which was held on the night of the Olympic Opening Ceremony. The event set a new weekly National Lottery sales record of over £200m and broke the record for the highest number of lottery millionaires created in one night.

In total, National Lottery funding has now been awarded to more than 420,000 individual projects across the UK, which is the equivalent of 135 lottery grants for every postcode district.

Camelot also paid out £1.773bn in prizes to players during the period, which brings the total amount of prize money paid out by Camelot up to over £49bn and the total number of lottery millionaires up to more than 3,400.

The figure of £3.31bn reflects the long-term decline in sales of the National Lottery’s flagship Lotto game. This is the rationale behind its recent relaunch which included the controversial new price of £2.

The money from the National Lottery Good Causes is split up, with 20 per cent going to sport, 20 per cent to the arts, 20 per cent to heritage and the remaining 40 per cent going to health, education, environment and charitable causes.

Unclaimed winnings also go towards the National Lottery Good Causes, this figure is included in the £864m, however the interest earned on the unclaimed winnings is not included in the £864m but still goes to the good causes. A would-be multi-millionaire currently has until Wednesday to claim their winnings of £12m, from a ticket bought in one of the poorest areas of Birmingham, before it gets put towards charitable causes. An unclaimed £64m made its way to good causes last year.

The distribution of the National Lottery Good Causes is decided by 12 independent Lottery funders. These are:

• Arts Council England
• Arts Council of Northern Ireland
• Arts Council of Wales
• British Film Institute (BFI)
• Big Lottery Fund
• Creative Scotland
• Heritage Lottery Fund
• Sport England
• Sport Northern Ireland
• Sport Wales
• Sport Scotland, and
• UK Sport