Online lottery betting operators like Lottoland are to blame for ticket price hikes, according to the Irish National Lottery’s chief exec.

On Thursday, the Irish Times quoted Irish National Lottery CEO Dermot Griffin slamming lottery betting operators as “rogues” that are “siphoning off” revenue from his business. Said siphoning is also allegedly shrinking the Lottery’s contributions to good causes, which totaled €226m in 2017.

Griffin (pictured) failed to quantify the effect that lottery betting is having on his outfit’s sales, saying only that hard information was hard to come by “but we know we’re losing something.” Griffin claimed the alleged rogues were responsible for cannibalizing up to 20% of state lottery sales in the UK and Australia. Lottoland received its Irish online betting license in 2016.

National Lottery spokesperson Miriam Donohue said Premier Lotteries Ireland (PLI), which won a 20-year license to operate Ireland’s lottery in 2014, is being forced to up its marketing spending in order to compete with lottery betting operators on Google search results.