The National Lottery has hit its target to raise £750m for the London 2012 Olympic Games through the sale of specially-designated lottery games.

The achievement forms part of a £2.2bn contribution towards the cost of the games by the National Lottery, set by Parliament upon London winning the bid in 2006. The contribution to the Games is the biggest ever lottery-funded project to date.

Olympic-themed games such as the Olympic Champion and Win Gold scratch-cards and online games were devised specifically to achieve the target, while the sales from other games were re-assigned towards the goal, a Camelot spokesman advised.

Retailers were incentivised to promote the Olympic-designated games by National Lottery operator Camelot through a combination of cash rewards and Olympic and Paralympic Games packages under the Rewards+ system. Launched in July 2011 Rewards+ awards retailers for "great in-store execution and up-selling of the National Lottery". It has now paid out over £500,000 to retailers and awarded 45 Olympic Games packages, with 15 more soon to be awarded. 

Duncan Malyon, sales director at Camelot said achieving the £750m funding target had "only been made possible by the outstanding dedication and enthusiasm of our retail partners".

Record return for good causes

The National Lottery is also celebrating a record return for good causes in 2011/12.  The funder raised £1.8bn, 9.6 per cent or £160m more than in 2011/12.  This brings the total delivered to good causes since the launch of the lottery in 1994 to £28bn. Camelot now raises £30m every week for good causes.