Mr Anderson has lodged the petition, which was signed by customers of newsagents and lottery agents across NSW and the ACT, for it to be debated in the lower house.

It supports NSW Lotteries products only being sold by small businesses, following plans for supermarket chains to be able to sell the tickets after a moratorium expires in 2018.

“Newsagents across the state are facing a challenge if the sale of lottery tickets is permitted to migrate to big businesses such as Coles and Woolworths,” Mr Anderson said.

“I am a strong advocate of small businesses like newsagents and know the difference they make to our towns, through employment and economic contribution.”

He said he was waiting for confirmation as to when the petition would be presented to Parliament.

Shoppingworld Newsagency owner Dean Finlay said he hoped the petition would lead to the state government listening to people’s concerns and taking action to protect newsagents.

“Hopefully that’ll be good for newsagents and good for small business, which we do need – small business needs to keep on going and support local economies,” Mr Finlay said.

Mr Finlay said if the proposal went ahead and supermarkets could sell lottery tickets, it would “cripple small business” and have a flow-on effect on the community.

“The majority of the public – probably 99 out of 100, we would find – is against this. They’ve had enough of big businesses taking everything,” he said.

“The customers are very loyal. Newsagents are an integral part of the community.”

He said while newsagents had a three-year reprieve, it was unknown what would happen beyond that.