Ireland’s national lottery operator is wearing egg on its face after regulators found that more than one-third of underage residents could purchase lottery products.

On Wednesday, Irish media reported that the Office of the Regulator of the National Lottery (ORNL) had tasked Ipsos MRBI with conducting a mystery shopper test in which individuals under the age of 18 years were sent to 510 Irish National Lottery retailers to see if they could purchase lottery scratch cards.

The test, which was conducted last summer and involved subjects as young as 15, found that 37% of lottery retailers agreed to sell these underage customers scratch cards. The regulator hastened to add that the tests only went as far as getting the retailer to commence the sale process, and that no scratch cards were actually purchased by these babes in the lottery woods.

The test also found that 27% of lottery retailers failed to display the required signage indicating that lottery purchases were limited to customers 18 years or older. Only half (51%) of shops lacking signage refused the underage purchase requests, compared with 67% in shops displaying the required signage.