National Lottery (United Kingdom)

A statute of 1698 provided that in England lotteries were by default illegal unless specifically authorised by statute. State lotteries were established by the Bank of England to generate money for ‘good causes’ and also to enable Britain to go to war.[5] Early English state lotteries included the Million Lottery (1694) and the Malt Lottery (1697).

A 1934 Act, further liberalised in 1956 and 1976, legalised small lotteries.

A National Health Service Lottery was piloted in 1988 but cancelled for legal reasons before the first draw.

The UK's state-franchised lottery was set up under government licence by the government of John Major in 1993.[6] The National Lottery is franchised to a private operator; the Camelot Group was awarded the franchise on 25 May 1994.[7]

The first draw took place on 19 November 1994 with a television programme presented by Noel Edmonds. The first numbers drawn were 30, 3, 5, 44, 14 and 22, the bonus was 10, and seven jackpot winners shared a prize of £5,874,778.[8]

Tickets became available on the Isle of Man on 2 December 1999 at the request of Tynwald.

A second lottery draw, Thunderball, was introduced by Camelot on 12 June 1999.

The National Lottery undertook a major rebranding programme in 2002, designed to combat falling sales. The main game was renamed Lotto, and Lottery Extra became Lotto Extra, though Camelot would later retire Lotto Extra on 8 July 2006 due to low sales. The stylised crossed-fingers logo was modified.[9] However, the games as a collective are still known as the National Lottery. It is one of the most popular forms of gambling in the United Kingdom.

Originally, the draw machines for Lotto and Lotto Extra were the Criterion model, manufactured by Smartplay International Inc., but on 25 October 2003, Camelot replaced them with Smartplay's Magnum I model. On 21 November 2009, Camelot replaced its older Lotto draw machines again. The new machines are named Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot and Merlin, reusing the names of older machines. Shortly after the new Lotto draw machines were introduced, new machines for the Thunderball game were introduced, replacing Smartplay's older Halogen I model that had been in use since 1999. The current Lotto machines are the Smartplay Magnum II model, and the current Thunderball and Set For Life machines are the Smartplay Halogen II model.[10][11]

On 16 March 2018, Camelot advised more than 10 million players with online accounts to change their passwords because of a "low-level" cyber attack that affected 150 customer accounts. They claim that no money was taken from customers. Camelot claimed the hackers used a method called credential stuffing and said the attack appeared to have begun on 7 March.[12][13]

As of March 2019, the current games include:

Players buy tickets with their choice of six different numbers between 1 and 59; there is provision for random numbers to be generated automatically for those who do not wish to choose, known as 'Lucky Dip'. The entry fee to the Lotto draw was set at £1 per board from its introduction, and increased to £2 in October 2013.

The draw is conducted twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays, except that a draw on Christmas Day is moved to Christmas Eve. Saturday draws started on 19 November 1994, under the name 'National Lottery'; the first Wednesday draw was on 5 February 1997. All of the draws are shown live on the official website at 20:00 on Wednesdays, and at 19:45 on Saturdays.

Lotto was originally called The National Lottery, but was renamed Lotto in an update in 2002 after ticket sales decreased. Lotto is by far the most popular draw, with around 15 to 45 million tickets sold each draw. The most winners for a single jackpot was 133 in January 1995, each player winning £122,510.

In the draw, six numbered balls are drawn without replacement from a set of 59 balls numbered from 1 to 59 (formerly 1 to 49 until October 2015). A further Bonus Ball is also drawn, which affects only players who match five numbers.

There are six prize tiers,[15] which are awarded to players who match at least two of the six drawn numbers, with prizes increasing for matching more of the drawn numbers. The players who match all six drawn numbers win equal shares of the jackpot; the chance of doing so is 1 in 45,057,474. Similarly, if four or five balls are matched, the relevant prize is divided equally between all who match that many balls.

If no player matches all six numbers, the jackpot is added to that of the next Lotto draw—a rollover. This accumulation was limited to three consecutive draws until 10 February 2011, when it was increased to four. Rollovers are frequent, with for example 20 Wednesday (39%) and 13 Saturday rollovers (25%) in 2011 (fewer tickets are sold on Wednesdays than Saturdays, increasing the probability of a rollover). "Treble rollovers"—two consecutive rollovers—are much less common. The first quadruple rollover draw occurred on Saturday 29 September 2012 with a jackpot of £19.5 million.[16] In the event of a quadruple rollover, if no tickets matched all six main numbers, the jackpot was shared between the tickets that match five numbers and the bonus ball. In October 2015, this rollover limit was replaced by a jackpot cap.[17]

Camelot announced that the ticket price was to double to £2 from 3 October 2013, with prizes restructured.[18][19] The announcement was followed by news that large bonuses were to be set aside for management pay, which drew criticism.[20]

The arrival of the "New Lotto" meant bigger jackpots with an estimated average of £1.1 million extra for Saturday's draw and £400,000 on Wednesday. Players matching three numbers receive an extra £15, up from £10 before and an extra £40 for matching 4 numbers. Those matching five numbers receive £500 less, and £50,000 less when matching five numbers + the bonus ball, compared to the former system.[21]

As part of the refresh, a new Lotto Raffle was introduced, with at least 50 winners of £20,000 per draw.[22] The announcement and launch of the refreshed Lotto game caused controversy due to the price increase (dubbed as a "tax on the poor").[23][24] The new game launched with a £10,000,000 jackpot and 1,000 Lotto Raffle winners of £20,000.[25]

From 10 October 2015, Camelot announced further changes to the Lotto game which increased the pool of numbers from 49 to 59. Rollovers are no longer limited in number, instead the size of the jackpot is capped; the cap is reached after about 14 rollovers. When the jackpot gets to £50 million, if no-one matches all six main numbers the jackpot will rollover to the following draw. In the event nobody matches all six numbers on that draw the jackpot "rolls down" and is combined with the prize fund for the next prize category where there is at least one winner.

Since the rule changes in October 2015 there is also a "match 2" prize of a free lucky dip ticket for another draw, with odds of doing so at 1 in 10. This created much criticism as the breakdown of prizes announced by Camelot includes the value of these prizes (£2 each winner) within the draw's prize fund even though each match 2 prize winner does not see any monetary value unless their ticket matches three main numbers or more in the following draw. Included with each Lotto ticket is the Millionaire Lotto Raffle where 20 players win £20,000 each and one player wins £1 million per draw.

In January 2016, the Lotto jackpot reached the £50 million cap and rolled over once more to reach a record-breaking £66 million. This was won by two ticket holders who received £33 million each.[26] In August of that year, the jackpot cap was lowered to £22 million. If nobody wins the jackpot when it is £22 million or more, it will roll to the next draw one final time. Then, the jackpot must be won: if no-one matches all six main numbers, the jackpot prize will be shared by the players with the most winning numbers.

From October 2015 the total prize fund is 47.50% of draw sales in a normal week, including the raffle. The three-ball prize winners, with odds of 96 to 1,[27] receive £25 each; the two-ball prize winners receive a free £2 entry. 17.82% of the sales are divided as shown in the table and split equally with the number of winners for each selection.

Wednesday 21 November 2018 brought significant changes.[28] Ever since the game's inception, all prizes levels from "match 4" and above varied depending on the number of winners at each level and on total ticket sales. From this date, each prize level is a fixed amount per winner, similar to the Thunderball draw. For the changes to be made possible, the Lotto Millionaire raffle was discontinued. The ticket price of £2 and number pool (1–59) remain the same.

Rollovers are limited to five. If nobody matches all six main numbers after the fifth rollover, the jackpot is shared between every cash prize winner. This is called a "Jackpot Rolldown". Every cash prize therefore increases substantially.(estimated amounts shown in brackets).

Expected jackpots: £3.8m minimum on Saturday and £2.0m minimum on Wednesday.

Lotto Hotpicks uses the main Lotto draw for its numbers but is a different game. The player chooses both the numbers and the number of draw balls they want to try to match, up to a maximum of five. However, if the player does not match all the numbers chosen, they are not a winner. The National Lottery describes Hotpicks as "five games in one", because the player has a choice of five ways of playing the game, each offering different odds and payouts.

The entry fee to the Lotto Hotpicks draw is £1.00 per board.

The Thunderball jackpot draw requires players to pick five main numbers from 1 to 39 and one 'Thunderball' number from 1 to 14 for an entry fee of £1 per line. Prizes are won by matching the Thunderball number or at least three main numbers alone. The more numbers matched, the bigger the prize won. The top prize, now £500,000, is won by matching all five main numbers as well as the Thunderball. The lowest prize is £3 for matching the Thunderball alone. Draws take place four times a week – Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays – and are shown live on the official website and on their YouTube channel at 20:15.

The first Thunderball draw was held on 12 June 1999 and the draw was originally only held on Saturdays, before being drawn on Wednesdays too. From 2006 to 2008, only the Saturday draw was televised, while on Wednesday the draw took place prior to the live TV show and the winning results were announced during the show.

The rules of Thunderball changed substantially on 9 May 2010. Before this date, Thunderball matches were drawn from numbers 1 to 34; there was no prize for matching the Thunderball number alone, and the top prize (for matching five main numbers and the Thunderball) was half the current jackpot at £250,000. After this date, the Friday draw was introduced in addition to the Wednesday and Saturday draws. Following the change of rules, while the chance of winning anything on Thunderball more than doubled, the chance of winning the top prizes more than halved. The Tuesday draw was added on 30 January 2018.

The odds and payouts are as follows:

On 18 March 2019, the first Set For Life draw took place. The game offers a top prize of £10,000 per month for thirty years (£3,600,000). Each line costs £1.50, and draws take place every Monday and Thursday at 20:00. Players choose five main numbers from 1 to 47, and one "Life Ball" from 1 to 10.[30]

On Saturday 7 February 2004 the lottery operator Camelot launched a pan-European lottery: EuroMillions. The first draw took place on Friday 13 February 2004 in Paris. The UK, France and Spain were involved initially. Lotteries from Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal and Switzerland joined the draw on 8 October 2004. The draws are currently made in Paris and shown recorded in the UK on the official website twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays, approximately three hours after the draw has taken place. The entry fee to the EuroMillions draw is £2.50 per board. The odds of winning the jackpot are 139,838,160 to 1.

On Friday 26 January 2018, the first EuroMillions HotPicks draw took place. It uses the same five main numbers as the EuroMillions draw and offers players the chance to win one of five prizes from £10 up to £1 million. The game works in a similar way to Lotto HotPicks whereby players have to decide how many numbers they are going to match. If they do not successfully match all of their selected numbers, then no prize is awarded.[31]

As well as tickets for the draw games, the National Lottery also sells scratchcards. Introduced in 1995, they are small pieces of card where an area has been covered by a thin layer of opaque latex that can be scratched off. Under this are concealed the items/pictures that must be found in order to win. Scratchcards can be purchased in most newsagents and supermarkets; they can cost £1, £2, £3 or £5 and come in many different forms, with a variety of prizes and ways to win.

The National Lottery used to offer £10 scratchcards but these were discontinued in September 2019, partly because they were attractive to problem gamblers.[32]

The generic scratchcard requires the player to match three of the same prize amounts. If this is accomplished, they win that amount; the highest as of March 2020 being £2,000,000 on a £5 scratchcard.[33] Other scratchcards involve matching symbols, pictures or words.

Initially, all scratchcards were sold for £1. Over the years, scratchcards that range in price from £2 to £10 have been available. More expensive scratchcards are larger and offer more games with higher-value prizes. Some scratchcards have jackpots other than one-off payments, such as a yearly sum or a car. Odds for winning a top prize on a scratchcard depend greatly on how many have been sold and whether there is any top prize scratchcards in circulation at time of purchase. As the range of scratchcard games has increased, the odds of winning vary greatly. For a game with the highest available jackpot of £4,000,000, the odds of winning the jackpot are around 1 in 4,000,000, whereas for a game with a low jackpot prize (and thousands of jackpots available), the odds of winning the jackpot are as low as around 1 in 10,000.[34]

Instant Win games are online games where the player can win prizes instantly. Some games are similar in format to scratchcards, with others involving more interactive play such as dice-rolling or matching special symbols. It is made clear that the Instant Win games are solely based on luck and that no skill or judgement is involved. Players must be registered in order to buy or try an Instant Win. "Try" games are free of charge and no payouts are made in respect of any prizes. As with scratchcards, there are a wide variety of Instant Win games available with different odds of winning prizes. The cost to play varies from 25p to £5. The current highest prize is £1 million on a £5 game. Odds of winning a top prize vary on each Instant Win game, and may be higher or lower than their scratchcard counterpart.

Introduced in November 2009, each EuroMillions ticket purchased in the UK contains a unique "UK Millionaire Maker" code, consisting of four letters and five numbers. There is one winner per draw (with the exception of a special draw), with the winner receiving a fixed £1,000,000.[35] Odds of winning depend on the number of tickets sold for that particular draw in the UK, but are generally 1 in 1,900,000 on Tuesdays and 1 in 2,950,000 on Fridays.[36]

Lotto Extra was introduced on 13 November 2000 and was originally called Lottery Extra but renamed Lotto Extra in 2002. It was an add-on from the main draw where a player could select "Lotto Extra same numbers" or a lucky dip. Players would pick six numbers from 49 and there were no lower tier prizes so a perfect match was required. The last draw was on 8 July 2006 and it was replaced by Dream Number.

Dream Number was launched on 15 July 2006. It involved a random seven-digit number generated for entry into the main draw. It was played independently of Lotto, or if played with Lotto one Dream Number was generated per ticket, not per Lotto entry. The cost of entry was £1. A dream number was printed on every Lotto ticket bought, whether the player had chosen to enter it into the draw or not. Unlike other Lotto games, it was not possible to choose the number entered, and the order that the digits were drawn was significant, as the digits had to be matched in the same order for the player to win. Players had to match with the first digit in order to start winning prizes (ranging from £2 to £500,000), which meant that 90% of players lost as soon as the first ball was drawn. Draws took place on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Originally, the draw was televised on both Wednesdays and Saturdays, but was latterly only televised on Saturdays, when the Wednesday draw took place prior to the live TV show and the winning dream number was announced during the show. All money raised for good causes from Dream Number went towards the 2012 Summer Olympics and 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. The National Lottery closed the Dream Number game on Wednesday 9 February 2011, which was also the date of the last Dream Number draw. It was then replaced by Lotto Plus 5.

The Daily Play draw started on Monday 22 September 2003 and could be played every day except Sunday and Christmas Day. By selecting seven numbers between 1 and 27, players could win anything from a free lucky dip to £30,000. The draw gave its players the chance to win a free daily play lucky-dip for not matching any numbers in the draw. The entry fee to the Daily Play draw was £1 per board.

Daily Play draws were broadcast via a webcast. In addition, from March 2005 to October 2005, the Daily Play draw was broadcast live on Challenge TV in the Glory Ball show, hosted by Jean Anderson, James McCourt, Jayne Sharp and Nikki Cowan.[37]

The National Lottery Daily Play Draw ended on Friday, 6 May 2011.[38]

Lotto Plus 5 was introduced in 2011[39] to plug the gaps between the Wednesday and Saturday Lotto draws, meaning it takes place on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. Players can enter by paying an extra £1 when buying their Lotto ticket, which enters the same ticket numbers into five separate draws. Each draw offers fixed prizes for matching 3, 4, 5 and 6 numbers, with the jackpot being worth £250,000. It has been estimated that the game produces an extra 500,000 Lotto winners every week. Due to the changes to the main Lotto game (most notably the introduction of the Lotto raffle), Plus 5 was discontinued; The last Plus 5 draw was played on 1 October 2013, with the last date to buy a ticket being 23 September 2013.

In August 1998, the National Lottery joined Vernons to create a lottery similar to the football pools.[40] Players marked a playslip to state how many lines they wanted to play. Tickets were £1 per entry. The lottery terminal allocated 10 football fixtures on the player's ticket, and the player attempted to match these fixtures that resulted in a score draw (1–1, 2–2, 3–3 and so on).

To win, players had to match at least five fixtures which resulted in a score draw; this always won £5. Matching six won between £6 and £530, depending on how many total score draws there were in total over all the fixtures played. Matching seven score draws won between £27 and £67,000 depending on total score draws, and matching eight won from £1,850 to £667,000. Thus, the more score draws there were, the easier it was to win.

The game was not a success and was discontinued at the end of the 1998–9 football season, in April 1999.[40]

Originally, this special one-off draw was made to commemorate the arrival of the new Millennium on 31 December 1999, but another 2 attempts were made in 2000 and 2001 to celebrate Christmas, and in 2002 to celebrate the new year of 2003.

Players would choose 6 years from 1900 to 1999 (in the 2003 version this was altered to 1901 to 2000) or a lucky dip on their Big Draw ticket for the first game, and if they matched all 5 main years drawn, they win the jackpot (lower prize tiers were also available for matching 2 to 4 main years or matching 4 main years + bonus year if the player does not match all 5 main years). Two years; one from the old Millennium and one from the new Millennium were also printed at the bottom of the ticket (old Millennium having anything from 1000 to 1999, and new Millennium having anything from 2000 to 2999) for the second game, and if the player matched both years on their Big Draw ticket, they would win the jackpot.

Five years and a bonus year would be drawn at random from the machine for the first game, but for the second game, two pairs of machines were used: for the ones for the old Millennium; the left machine would have the numbers from 10 to 19, and the right machine having the numbers 00 to 99. For the ones for the new Millennium; the left machine would have the numbers 20 to 29, and the right machine having the numbers from 00 to 99. One number was drawn at random from each of those machines; each pair creating a year. Each ticket cost £5 per board.

Camelot introduced the Lotto Raffle in October 2013, which was renamed Millionaire Raffle in October 2015. A raffle number was included with each line of Lotto numbers bought. Each raffle number consisted of a colour and eight numbers (e.g. AQUA 4579 2965), and each winning raffle number won a fixed amount of £20,000.

Before October 2015, 50 raffle numbers were drawn with each Lotto draw and the number of raffle winners increased by 50 each time the Lotto jackpot rolled over, with as many as 250 raffle winners in the event of a quadruple rollover. From 10 October 2015, the prize structure was changed, with 20 prizes of £20,000 and one prize of £1,000,000 with each Lotto draw. The Millionaire Raffle was discontinued after 17 November 2018 when the Lotto draw rules changed.

All National Lottery games can be played online after registering. There are two ways of playing the lotto online.

Direct Debit. Players can sign up by registering their bank account details and their saved numbers will be automatically entered. The National Lottery notifies winners by email if they have won, although this will not be on the evening of the draw; notification is usually by 12 noon the following day. This method is only available for the main Lotto, Thunderball and EuroMillions games.

Loaded Account. Funds are loaded into a player's account and are played as required. The National Lottery notifies winners by email if they have won on the draw games, or in the case of the lower prize Instant Wins, transfer the winnings to their accounts. The current minimum loading amount is £5.

The Play By Text service closed on 30 June 2013. Before then, players had been able to play the Lotto, Thunderball, EuroMillions and Lotto HotPicks by text after registering their mobile phone number. The discontinued games Dream Number and Daily Play also allowed text entry.

Lotto and EuroMillions were once available for play through Sky Active; however, this service was discontinued in September 2009. Prior to its discontinuation, players could purchase up to eight weeks worth of tickets at a time.[41]

From July 2015 Barclays included a function in their Pingit app to allow the purchase of tickets for the National Lottery and Euromillions. Only lucky dip lottery tickets can be purchased currently. Small winnings are paid directly into the Pingit account within one day.[42]

Between 10 March 2008 and 1 February 2010, the "National Lottery Xtra" channel was broadcast on Freeview channel 45 for one hour a day. Programming included content from winners of the jackpot and National Lottery Good Causes projects, as well as behind-the-scenes footage on how the National Lottery was operated.