The sweet-smelling lottery card - which offers a maximum prize of £500 - is the first of its kind in the UK, and will be available at 8,000 retail outlets but will be rolled out to  30,000 stores soon.

The launch by the National Lottery was inspired by the Czech Republic, which launched gingerbread-scented scratchcards back in 2017. 

But anti-gambling campaigners are worried that the new cards will attract younger players, and have drawn parallels to flavoured vapes catering.

National Lottery's operator, however, introduced an in-store cap this month which will only allow buyers to purchase 10 scratchcards at a time, to ensure excessive play is minimized. 

The launch of the scratchcards come just a week after a supermarket worker was warned she could be sent to prison after conning the National Lottery  of nearly £50,000. 

Melanie Davies admitted carrying out a scam which netted her £47,000 while working as a till cashier at a branch of Asda.

Davies tampered with winning tickets on a number of occasions to defraud the lottery company out of the money.

The 35-year-old, from Brechin, Angus, admitted to repeatedly pretending to the National Lottery that higher sums were due to be paid out on tickets. 

Dundee Sheriff Court heard she was working at Asda's Milton of Craigie store between August 2022 and July 2023 when the fraud took place.

Fiscal depute Sam Craib told the court Davies had no previous convictions. Sheriff Neil Kinnear deferred sentence until November 4 for background reports.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13928819/National-Lottery-introduce-chocolate-scented-scratchcards-boost-falling-sales.html