The National Lottery

The National Lottery is the largest lottery in the United Kingdom. It is operated by the Camelot Group whose head office is based in Watford, Hertfordshire.

Camelot were granted the licence to run the lottery in 1994 when the National Lottery was first launched. They retained the licence in 2001 when they beat off a strong challenge from Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. Camelot were again awarded the licence in 2009. This third license is for a ten year period with the option to extend by a further five years. The lottery is regulated by The National Lottery Commission.

The National Lottery was given a new look in 2002 in an attempt to reverse the fall in sales. This resulted in the Lottery game being renamed Lotto and new games including Thunderball and Lotto Plus 5 being introduced. However, the games are still collectively known as The National Lottery.

In 2004 the EuroMillions Lottery was launched. This is also operated by Camelot in the UK.

The UK Lotto is one of the most popular forms of gambling in the United Kingdom. The minimum jackpot is £2 million GBP and the biggest jackpot to-date was £42 million. All prizes are paid as one lump sum, not spread over many years as with some lotteries. All prizes are tax-free.

Out of every pound spent on Lottery games, 50p goes to the prize fund, 28p to ‘good causes’, 12p to the British Government as duty and 5p to retailers as commission (6% for lottery scratch card sales), while the operator receives 4.5p to cover their running costs and a further 0.5p profit. The National Lottery returns a higher percentage of revenue back to society than any other Lottery.

Players must be at least 16 years of age to take part, either in the drawn lottery games or by the purchase of lottery scratch cards. To purchase lottery tickets online you must also be a resident of the United Kingdom.

FreeNationalLotteryTickets, the only site in world that gives you free tickets* to the Lotto and EuroMillions draw, is not affiliated to, associated, endorsed or connected in any way to Camelot.