When Did The UK National Lottery Start? And Other Interesting Facts.

The UK National Lottery has it's beginnings back in the 90s, but was not the first lottery game from the United Kingdom. In this article we'll go over the early days of the UK National Lottery, the changes throughout the years and ten other interesting facts about the UK National Lottery.

Stay with us to the end because we have a huge discount for you to celebrate with the Brits.

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When Did The UK National Lottery Start?

The first UK National Lottery draw took place on November 19th in 1994. The winning numbers drawn were 3 - 5 - 14 - 22 - 30 - 40 and the bonus ball number was 10. Seven winners matched all the lucky numbers and split the jackpot of

The first ever draw was televised on BBC and hosted Noel Edmonds and Anthea Turner. The draw was watched by 22 million people, which at the time was 38% of the entire British population.

The license to operate the lottery game was awarded to a private company; the Camelot Group. They still operate the UK National Lottery to this day.

Changes To The UK National Lottery

The first change came in 1999 when Camelot introduced a second lottery draw known as the Thunderball. This draw had a different number range and higher ticket pricing compared to the normal UK National Lottery draw.

More games were again introduced in 2002 to help boost ticket sales. One of these games was known as the Lotto Extra and draws took place on the same day as the normal UK National Lottery draw. Lotto Extra was retired in 2006 due to low ticket sales.

The cross-fingers logo has also undergone multiple changes, the first being in 2002. The current logo is the third iteration.

The price of UK National Lottery tickets increased in October 2013 and the prizes where also restructured and more bonus prizes were introduced.

In October 2015 Camelot announced further changes to the UK National Lottery. They increased the number pool from 49 to 59, the scrapped the rollover limit but instead capped the jackpot amount at £50 million. If this jackpot cap is reached and nobody matches all the lucky numbers a 'rolldown' happens and the jackpot will go toward the lower tiers.

In August 2016 the jackpot cap was lowered to £22 million. The rules where also updated to state that if nobody won the jackpot when it reached £22 million, then the players with the most matching numbers would win the jackpot.

In October 2018 the UK National Lottery prize structure was changed so that each prize tier has a fixed prize amount rather than a percentage of the overall prize pool. The jackpot rollovers were also capped at five rollovers, after that the jackpot is then distributed to the players who matched the most lucky numbers.

10 Other Interesting Facts About The UK National lottery

Keep reading to see all the interesting facts relating to the UK National Lottery including all the charitable causes that are helped, what winners like to spend their money on and just how many millionaires are minted every week!

1. The lottery in the United Kingdom has its roots back to 1698. Although it was not called the UK National Lottery, there are records of a lottery being authorised by a UK commonwealth statute. The state would hold raffles or lotteries in times of war to gather funds.

Other early English lotteries included the Million Lottery (1694) and the Malt Lottery (1697).

2. Around 25% of ticket sales revenue goes to good causes. These funds are distributed by a community fund called the Big Lottery Fund, and since forming in 2004 has distributed roughly £9 billion to more than 130,000 charitably projects around the United Kingdom.

The fund currently awards grants to projects involved in health sectors, education, sports development and other charities around the greater UK area. The UK National Lottery donates over £34 million every week to different projects.

3. UK National Lottery funding has helped bring twenty species back from the brink of extinction. This funding went toward the Back From The Brink initiative, England's most ambitious conservation project.

Some of the species helped include the Barberry Carpet moth, the Black-Tailed duck, the Shrill Carder bee and various other flora and fauna.

4. Millions are donated by the UK National Lottery every draw. If we look at this in another way; thats roughly £3,000 donated every minute or approximately £50 donated every second.

Since 1994 the UK National Lottery have donated to approximately 44,000 different heritage projects.

5. The UK National Lottery has minted over 6,000 millionaires. Since it launched the UK National Lottery has awarded 6,100 lucky winners with £1 million or more. That's around six new millionaires every week!

The number of millionaires minted by the UK National Lottery each week has more than doubled since the 90s.

6. The first thing most winners do is have a cup of tea. According to a study from 2016 conducted among UK National Lottery winners, the most common thing to do after winning is put the kettle on and have a cup of tea. How British!

Some of first things that UK National Lottery winners who claim big payouts buy include a new car, a new dog or a family holiday overseas.

7. The luckiest lotto winning postcode in the UK is Birmingham. The postcode of Birmingham has recorded a grand total of 119 millionaires claimed from the UK National Lottery. There are also plenty of small towns that are full of lucky lotto winners including Romford, Enfield and Dartford.

See what other towns in the United Kingdom have a high density of lottery winners and how much they have won.

8. The UK National Lottery is the most popular game in Europe. Surpassing traditional gambling and raffles, more people play the lottery in the UK than any other game. The revenue for the lottery in the UK is expected to surpass £10 billion by 2023.

The European countries that currently play the UK National Lottery online the most are Spain, England and Italy.

9. The luckiest profession for UK National Lottery winners is builder. More builders have won UK National Lottery jackpots and tier 2 and tier 3 than any other profession.

There are also more builders that have claimed jackpots over £100 million than any other profession.

10. The first UK National Lottery double-rollover was in 1996. This remains one of the most hyped lottery draws of all time with over £10,000 worth of tickets being sold every 100 seconds.

This draw was also televised and over 20 million people tuned in to watch.

UK National Lottery 27th Anniversary Promo

The 19th of November will mark the 27th anniversary of the UK National Lottery, and to celebrate we've got an awesome offer for all Giant Lottos players.

To mark the occasion we're giving you the chance to play in one year's worth of UK National Lottery draws at a fraction of the price of what it would normally cost.

This bundle has some serious savings! To be precise if you claim this bundle to you'll be getting a 99.3% saving off the regular price. If you bought these shares individually you would pay a whopping £7800, but with is offer you only need to pay £55.

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