The National Lottery raised just under £1.8bn for good causes in the year to March 2015, a 2.5 increase on last year, it was announced earlier this week.

Roughly 40 per cent of good causes money goes to the Big Lottery Fund, the main distributor of funding to charities, meaning it is likely to have received around £720m in the period.

The funding delivering this year takes the total delivered to date to good causes to over £33bn.

The Lottery had a 7.5 per cent increase in revenue from ticket sales, Camelot UK Lotteries Limited announced this week. It said UK National Lottery ticket sales were £7.3bn for the year to March 2015, an increase of £546m year on year.

Camelot’s performance over the year was driven by strong sales of its resurgent flagship Lotto game, which, following its relaunch in October 2013 after a decade of decline, has enjoyed two years of consecutive growth.

Camelot faced controversy in 2013, when it doubled the price of a Lottery ticket to £2.