Lottery players spend half a billion euro each year

New figures show the country is spending more than half a billion euro a year on the national lottery.

We bought €538m worth of tickets on the most popular games, with the increase in sales driven mainly by Lotto Plus. €175.8m euro was paid out to good causes last year - €75m of which was ploughed into the health service.

National Lottery director Ray Bates rejected criticism that the lottery is another form of taxation.

"The government decide who gets what money, so in that sense they're doing the same thing with lottery money as they do with tax," he said, "but from the players' point of view its not the same at all, because the player can decide not to play the lottery - he can't decide not to pay tax."