It started in 1994 and is generally referred to as Lotto or UK Lotto. Tickets for the lotto cost £1 and the draw is held every Wednesday and Saturday. When it started, there was onlya weekly draw on Saturday but this has now changed.
Special machines are used to select the winning numbers. This is done by drawing marked balls from a ball pool. Different machines are used for different draws. The machines themselves are named after famous wizards, kings, knights and gemstones. I find this interesting and amusing but I’m afraid that I don’t know why this is so or whether or not there is a story behind it. If you do, please contact me and I will add it to this page.
To win the national lottery, you have to match 6 numbers. The numbers must be chosen from 1 to 49. You must also match a further bonus number as well. The odds of doing this game are around 1 in fourteen million. So forget it. Unless you have tricks up your sleeve such as:
1. You are using completely RANDOM numbers.2. You are playing in a SYNDICATE.3. You are an extremely LUCKY person.
If several people all match the six winning numbers plus the bonus number, they will all have to share the jackpot. If you match fewer numbers, you win smaller prizes. If no player matches the jackpot, the prize money rolls over and it is added to the following week’s jackpot.
There are also smaller lottery games that have sprung up as spin-offs from the main lotto game.
These are Hotpicks, Tunderball, Dream number, scratch cards and Daily Play