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Playing the UK National Lottery and picking possible winning numbers are easy and straight-forward. Simply buy a ticket from a Local Retailer to stand a chance to win big cash prizes.
Players can play up to a maximum of seven plays on a single play-slip, for up to four consecutive weeks.
When the draw takes place, six balls will be randomly selected as the main numbers, followed by a Bonus Ball from the remaining 53 numbers. To win the jackpot, players must match all six main numbers, but there are follow up prizes for matching two, three, four or five numbers, five numbers + the Bonus Ball.
Players have a 1 in 9.3 chance of winning any prize in the UK Lotto and odds of 1 in 45,057,474 of winning the jackpot prize. The Jackpot can roll over five times in a row before it has to be given away in a ‘Must Be Won’ draw, with the jackpot money split between every cash winner if no one matches all six numbers.
The UK Lotto is drawn twice a week and uses both a variety of lottery machines and ball sets to truly randomize the process. The machines are given names taken from the mythology surrounding King Arthur or from gemstones. Both the machine and set of balls are chosen at random before each draw by an independent onlooker from sealed envelopes.
The cut off point for claiming UK Lotto prizes is 180 days from the draw date and any winnings not claimed by this point will be allocated to the UK National Lottery Good Causes Fund.
If a ticket was purchased online, the player will be notified after the draw if they are due a prize, and how to proceed.
Players within the UK will not be taxed on their winnings but online players from other countries may be liable to be taxed in their home country.
There are two National Lottery regional claim centers available to players to claim prizes up to and including £50,000. Note – They are not for general walk-in claims. Players must make an appointment before visiting by phoning the claim center beforehand.
Prizes over £500 and up to £50,000 must be claimed at one of the two available regional lottery centers. Prizes up to £500 can also be claimed from some lottery retailers or from designated National Lottery post offices if this service is offered. There are over 11,500 branches of the post office in the UK, some which trade on Sundays.
Please note that lottery retailers can but are not required to pay out prizes of between £100 and £500. If there are insufficient funds on hand to pay out a prize, players may need to find another retailer or post office to claim it from.
Players will need to send the winning ticket, along with any proof of ID and forms requested, to the address below via recorded or tracked delivery. Note – No responsibility will be taken for lost tickets.
The National Lottery
Accounts Department
PO Box 287
Watford
WD18 9TT
Prize Tier | Percentage of Jackpot |
---|---|
Match 5 + Bonus | 3% |
Match 5 | 6% |
Match 4 | 17% |
Match 3 | 74% |
According to a poll run by mathematician Alex Bellos, seven is not surprisingly the most popular lucky number in the world.
Seven days of the week, seven wonders of the world, seven continents, seven seas, and the list goes on.
Other traditional lucky numbers include three (as in “good things come in threes”) and four.
Horoscopes: Lucky Numbers for Today
If you’d like to find lucky numbers without having to play around with numbers yourself, your daily horoscope is a good place to turn.
Many horoscopes include predictions of which days will be lucky for you (and you can try playing the lottery on those days).
Picking certain numbers may offer you a slight advantage, not for your chances of winning, but for your payout.
If you win a lottery jackpot, there is a chance that you might have to split the payout with players who picked the same numbers, so you might as well try to select rarer numbers to improve your odds of keeping more of the payout for yourself.
The simplest way to find lucky numbers to play is simply to use a generator. Lucky number generators use numerology, or perhaps simply randomness, to find numbers for you.
In Lotto 6/52, on average, one lottery number will be a repeat hit from the last drawing 56 percent of the time.
Just a note About #LotteryStrategies
Finding and playing lucky numbers is based on fun more than facts. Mathematically, every number has an equal chance of being chosen as a winner.
Remember that there are disadvantages to using traditional lucky numbers as lottery numbers: a lot of other players will be using them, too. That means that if these numbers do win, players chances of having to split the jackpot are high.
The table below shows the prizes on offer and the odds of winning each one:
Numbers to Match | Odds of Winning | Prize Value |
---|---|---|
6 Numbers (jackpot) | 1 in 45,057,474 | Jackpot |
5 Numbers + Bonus Ball | 1 in 7,509,579 | £1,000,000 (fixed) |
5 Numbers | 1 in 144,415 | £ 1,750 (fixed) |
4 Numbers | 1 in 2,180 | £140 (fixed) |
3 Numbers | 1 in 97 | £30 (fixed) |
2 Numbers | 1 in 10.3 | Free Lotto Lucky Dip (fixed) |
Odds of winning any UK Lotto prize are approximately 1 in 9.3.
*Approximate Odds
Absolutely not! The UK National Lottery was launched in 1994, an is still going strong over 26 years later. Unfortunately, fake wins with other institutions have become a regular occurrence – so here are a few tips to keep you and your money safe!
A lottery scam is an attempt to fraudulently extract money from someone by pretending to be a legitimate lottery company or winning player. It has sadly become a too common method of deception as such scams prey on people’s desire to win money and the popularity of big lottery games.
Did you receive a notification that you have won a prize in a lottery? Perhaps the Microsoft Lottery? If so, don’t get too enthusiastic as this is almost certainly a scam. Players need to find the winning numbers in a newspaper, the internet, or on TV and compare them to their ticket.
Win notices from foreign lotteries are even more suspicious. Not only do foreign lotteries have the same restriction as domestic lotteries, but it is also illegal to sell tickets for foreign lotteries across international borders.
Therefore, unless a player actually was in a foreign country and bought a lottery ticket, foreign lottery notifications are frauds.
A lottery scam is a type of advance-fee fraud which begins with an unexpected email notification, phone call, or mailing (sometimes including a large check) explaining that “You have won!” a large sum of money in a lottery.
If you receive a letter or email claiming that you won a prize for the UK National Lottery but did not enter, it is strongly recommended that you:
The biggest note to remember – It’s impossible to win a lottery without buying a ticket!
The UK Lotto is the country’s longest-running lottery game and continues to be played by millions of players every week. Draws take place on both Wednesday and Saturday evenings, with not only a big jackpot on but multiple ways to enter and win. As well as by purchasing a ticket at a shop, tickets can be purchased other ways. All National Lottery games can be played online after registering via Direct Debit or a loaded account. Funds are loaded into a player’s account and are played as required. The current minimum loading amount is £10. By 2016, the National Lottery had raised approximately £35 billion for ‘good causes’, a programmer which distributes money via grants. 25% of lottery revenue goes towards the fund, along with all unclaimed prizes. Additionally, 12% goes to the state. The prize fund is about 53% of revenue, with the remaining 10% going towards running costs and profits for the lottery organizers and ticket sellers. Results can easily be followed and checked online – ensuring no winnings are missed.
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Stay up to date with all the latest Lotto news and Lotto Results by following us on social media.