Several games operate under The National Lottery brand:
Current games , the current games include:
Lotto 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 a '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, between 1994 and 2009, a draw on Christmas Day was moved to Christmas Eve; since 2010, draws are held on Christmas Day if that was a Wednesday or Saturday. 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 their YouTube channel at 20:00 on Wednesdays, and Saturdays. Lotto was originally called
The National Lottery, but was renamed
Lotto in an update on 18 May 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, 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. 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.
Lotto Bonus Draws On 18 May 2002, to celebrate the rebranding of The National Lottery, Camelot had introduced three special one-off bonus jackpot-only draws, with each bonus draw having a jackpot of £4,000,000. In the same year on 1 June 2002, Camelot had introduced another special one-off jackpot-only draw to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of
Queen Elizabeth II. Whilst the estimated jackpot for the main Lotto draw that evening was £6,600,000, the jackpot for the Lotto Golden Jubilee Draw was £10,000,000. Again on 6 November 2004, to celebrate The National Lottery's 10th anniversary, Camelot once again introduced another special one-off jackpot-only draw, known as the Lotto 10th Anniversary Draw. The jackpot for this bonus draw, like with the Lotto Golden Jubilee Draw, was £10,000,000. Once again on 29 April 2006, in response to Camelot's rival Chariot introducing a Monday Lotto draw that enters your ticket into their two draws each Monday, another one-off bonus jackpot-only draw for Lotto, known as the Lotto Monday Spoiler Draw was once again introduced by Camelot. The jackpot for this bonus draw was £5,000,000. These bonus draws were included in the main Lotto game and gave players another chance at winning the jackpot on their Lotto ticket, using the same six numbers entered into the main draw. The rules were the same as Lotto Extra where players must match all six numbers to win the jackpot.
October 2013 changes Camelot announced that the ticket price was to double to £2 from 3 October 2013, with prizes restructured. The announcement was followed by news that large bonuses were to be set aside for management pay, which drew criticism. 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. As part of the refresh, a new Lotto
Raffle was introduced, with at least 50 winners of £20,000 per draw. The announcement and launch of the refreshed Lotto game caused controversy due to the price increase (dubbed as a "tax on the poor"). The new game launched with a £10,000,000 jackpot and 1,000 Lotto Raffle winners of £20,000.
October 2015 changes 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.
January 2016 changes 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. In August of that year, the jackpot cap was lowered to £22 million. If nobody won the jackpot when it reached £22 million or more, it would roll to the next draw one final time. Then, the jackpot must be won: if no-one matched all six main numbers, the jackpot prize was to be shared by the players with the most winning numbers. From October 2015 until October 2018, the total prize fund was 47.50% of draw sales in a normal week, including the raffle. The three-ball prize winners, with odds of 96 to 1, received £25 each; the two-ball prize winners received 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. In October 2018 the Lotto Raffle was discontinued.
November 2018 changes Wednesday 21 November 2018 brought significant changes. 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, and Set For Life draws. 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 prize winner including match 2 winners from October 2020. 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 Event Draws. All prize levels have a fixed prize amount. Due to this payout structure on occasion there will be a larger allocated prize fund than required to pay out all winners. This additional prize money is then placed into a reserve fund which is used when additional winners have winning matches. Once this surplus amount reaches a specified value a special event "must be won" draw is offered with a jackpot of £15 million. (rolling down if no match 6 winner). On Saturday 24 August 2019, Camelot also ran a "double prize" event. All cash prizes were doubled although this has not been repeated since.
Lotto Hotpicks 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. Prior to 2015 (49 numbers) Prizes were 1 number = £5, 2 Numbers = £40, 3 Numbers = £450, 4 Numbers £7,000, 5 Numbers = £130,000. At launch, Match 1 & Match 5 were not available. These 2 options were added on 26 October 2005. The entry fee to the Lotto Hotpicks draw is £1.00 per board.
Thunderball 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 20:00 on Tuesday & Fridays, and at 20:15 on Wednesdays & Saturdays. The first Thunderball draw was held on 12 June 1999 and the draw was originally only held on Saturdays, however, from 23 October 2002, the draw was held 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:
Set For Life 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.
EuroMillions 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.
EuroMillions HotPicks 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.
Scratchcards 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. The generic scratchcard requires the player to match three of the same prize amounts. If this is accomplished, they win that amount; the highest being £2,000,000 on a £5 scratchcard. 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 are 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.
Online Instant Wins 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.
UK Millionaire Maker 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. 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.
Discontinued games Lotto Extra Lotto Extra was introduced on 13 November 2000 and was originally called
Lottery Extra but renamed Lotto Extra on 18 May 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 draw was originally televised on both Wednesdays and Saturdays, but after the introduction of Wednesday's Thunderball draw on 23 October 2002, only the Saturday draw was televised as the Wednesday draw took place prior to the live TV show, and the winning results for Lotto Extra on Wednesdays was shown after the main Lotto draw; this was due to the 5 minute timeslot allocated to the midweek draws on
BBC One. Due to poor sales on the draw's last few years, the last draw was on 8 July 2006 and it was replaced by Dream Number.
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 in which 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. Three Dream Number machines were made and were named Peridot, Tourmaline and Aventurine, and were custom made single digit air mix machines manufactured by Smartplay International Inc. 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.
Daily Play 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. The National Lottery Daily Play Draw ended for good on Friday 6 May 2011.
Lotto Plus 5 Lotto Plus 5 was introduced in 2011 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. The Lotto Plus 5 draw was also the only National Lottery draw game to use a computer generated Automated Draw Machine (
Random Number Generator) instead of a Mechanical Draw Machine, as used with their raffle games such as the Euromillions Millionaire Maker Code. 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 Tuesday 1 October 2013, with the last date to buy a ticket being Monday 23 September 2013.
Vernons Easy Play In August 1998, The National Lottery joined
Vernons to create a lottery similar to the
football pools. 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.
Big Draw / Christmas Millionaire Maker Originally a special one-off draw, which was made to commemorate the arrival of the new millennium on 31 December 1999, but was brought back in 2000 to celebrate the next new year, and in 2001, 2002 and 2003 to celebrate Christmas on 24 December each year. Players would choose six years from a hundred or a lucky dip on their Big Draw/Christmas Millionaire Maker ticket for the first game. In Big Draw 2000, the year pool was from 1900 to 1999, 1901 to 2000 for Big Draw 2001, 1902 to 2001 for Christmas Millionaire Maker 2001, 1903 to 2002 for Christmas Millionaire Maker 2002, and 1904 to 2003 for Christmas Millionaire Maker 2003. Five years and a bonus year were drawn. If a player matched all five years drawn, they won the jackpot. If no-one won the jackpot on the first game, the prize money would roll down to players winning the next prize level. For each entry into game one, players would be automatically entered into game two. Two years – one from 1000 to 1999 and another from 2000 to 2999 – randomly allocated by the lottery terminal, were printed below each game one selection, and if the player matched both years on their ticket, they would win £1,000,000. One machine was used for the first game, but for the second game two pairs of machines were used: first a left machine with the numbers from 10 to 19, and a right machine with 00 to 99; secondly a left machine with 20 to 29, and again a right machine with 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.
Millionaire Raffle 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. Until 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. == Other ways to play ==