Review of the UK National Lottery

Throughout the autumn of 1994, the UK populace had been gearing up to the first ever National Lottery draw; people seriously discussing what they would spend their millions on; magical adverts showed an enormous hand surrounded by stars materialising to single out an unsuspecting character and advise them that “It could be you”; supermarkets, corner shops and high street stores were installing Lottery computers and Lottery advertising; the media ran lottery based articles and fuelled the nations excitement. At the time, however, I was four months shy of being eligible to play the Lottery, but not wanting to be left out my mother bought a ticket for me. The big day came and in millions of households across the country families gathered around their TV’s, tickets gripped tightly through an hour of light entertainment, awaiting the first draw. And so it came, numbered balls plucked from a numbered-ball-spinning machine, the nation holding a collective breath, tensions heightened by the ominous background music, and it was over. The numbers had been called and I had not won; neither had any of my friends or family. Too young to be cynical about statistics, I hoped for better luck next time as we were informed that someone in the country had become several millions of pounds better off that night.

For the next few years the Saturday night draws, shown on BBC One, continued unchanged: six balls drawn from a set of forty-nine and then a seventh ball drawn as a bonus ball. The aim of the game was to match three or more of your chosen numbers to the numbers drawn in the lottery. To match three numbers guaranteed a payout of £10, to match four, five or six numbers won a percentage of the total prize fund which varied depending on the number of people participating that week and how many other people also matched the same numbers. However, matching four numbers could win you around £100, five numbers could get several hundred pounds, five numbers plus the bonus ball wins between tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands. The lucky few are the ones who match all of the six main numbers as they can usually expect millions of pounds. As stated above though, this is dependent on how many other people also matched the six numbers, for example, yesterday’s ‘six number’ prize fund was £4.2 million but had to be shared between twelve winners, each getting around £350,000. It should also be noted that the ‘five numbers plus bonus ball’ prize fund was £1.3 million which was dived between 32 winners, but if only one person had matched five plus the bonus ball they would have won more than the main prize winners.

The National Lottery was an instant hit with the British public who ploughed millions of pounds into the prize fund every week with the hope of winning a life changing amount of money. This new pastime elbowed out the football pools which had previously been the country’s nationwide gambling system, based on football score-draws and a complicated (at least to me) betting form to fill in every week. The archaic system of the ‘Pools Man’ visiting once a week to collect your form and cash, followed by having to listen to the monotonous score-draw announcement was replaced by a modern computer-networked system, worthy to accompany Britain into the next century. This new technology made it very simple for the public; they pick up a slip, mark the six numbers of their choice, the slip is ran through the computer and the ticket is printed. Each line of six numbers costs £1 and multiple lines of numbers cane be printed on one ticket. For the busy or uncreative minds, the computers can also generate lines of randomly chosen numbers called ‘lucky dips’.

For the impatient among us, the National Lottery introduced scratchcards which can be purchased at any Lottery sale outlet. The first types of Lottery scratchcards cost £1 and generally the punter would scratch of a silver panel (opaque latex, to be smart) and hope to match three of the same sum of money or three of the same picture (often the cherries and bells common to the one-armed bandits of yore). Nowadays there are £2 and £5 scratchcards available offering more games, more panels to scratch off, and statistically more chances of winning. As these cards do not rely on the lottery draw they can offer an instant win which can be redeemed immediately at any of the Lottery sale outlets, however, the amount an outlet can pay out is limited to between £75 and £200 (at the retailers discretion).

In 1997 the amount of Lottery draws was doubled with the advent of an extra draw on Wednesday nights. This was followed in 1999 with the introduction of another game per draw called Thunderball. This game is based on the classic James Bond movie starring Sean Connery and the punter has to guess which of the spy’s famous one-liners will be pulled from a hat. No, not really. Thunderball is very similar to the main game though instead of six balls and a bonus ball, it is five balls and a Thunderball. However, the bonus ball in the main game is only ever used in conjunction with five matched numbers, whereas in Thunderball any matched number plus the matched Thunderball number will earn a prize; even if you only match one main number and the Thunderball you will get £5. As this offers more chances of winning, the prize money values are fixed at certain amounts and substantially lower than those of the main game, with the top prize for matching five numbers and the Thunderball being £250,000.

Daily Play, as its name suggests, is a daily lottery game. The draws are not televised, however, the results can be found via teletext or online (where the draw is shown). The aim is similar to the other games yet this draw differs in that there are seven balls drawn and there is no bonus ball. The monetary prizes only begin with matching four balls or more, starting at £5 for four matches up to £30,000 for all seven numbers matched. A rather cunning twist to the game is a free lucky-dip attempt at for the next days draw if you failed to match any of the numbers. This offers an added incentive to continue playing Daily Play if your luck has escaped you. This game should also increase the amount of people playing the Lottery online, as all the Lottery games can be played via the National Lottery website.

A slightly different game called Dream Numbers started in 2006. In this game the ticket is still £1 but the player is given a random seven digit number and hopes that the numbers are drawn in the sequence the numbers appear on the ticket. For every consecutive number matched, the greater the prize money becomes; even if you only match the first number you still get £2, match the second as well and you get £10, for matching all seven numbers you are guaranteed half a million pounds.

The National Lottery was not set up to simply create new millionaires country-wide, or to garner massive profits for Camelot who runs the Lottery. Although many millionaires have been produced and Camelot has reaped huge profits, much of the money goes to charities, good causes and of course, the government. For every pound paid into the Lottery, 50% goes into the Lottery prize fund, 12% into the government coffers, and 10% to the retailers and Camelot. The remaining 28% goes to charities and good causes. As of March 2007, Camelot announced that over £20 billion had been given to these good causes. At least a quarter of a million varied causes and charities have benefited from grants offered by the National Lottery Good Causes. These include sports grants for fledgling community teams, arts grants ranging from fine art to modern art, ballet to hip-hip, restoration of ancient buildings to funding new buildings, animal and child welfare, cultural improvements and many more. After the announcement of London staging the 2012 Olympics, Camelot stated that the charity proceeds of the Dream Number game would go towards funding the London Olympics. Alongside this, a specially themed Olympic Scratchcard was launched to gain even more funding for the event. The grants must be applied for, at which point an organisation independent of Camelot and the government, assesses the validity of each claim and the benefits of bestowing a grant upon them. The causes which are selected for a grant do not just walk away with a big cheque like a lottery winner; their grant will be received in instalments based on proof that they are using the money as outlined in their original plan. Any prizes unclaimed within 180 days will also be transferred to the good cause fund.

The National Lottery has undoubtedly become a national institution for creating wealthy people and helping charities and worthy causes. In our current climate of online poker, modern bingo houses and super casinos, the National Lottery still appears as a strong, innovative, socially acceptable form of legal gambling. Regardless of my advice over the huge probability of never winning, my mother plays a variety of the lottery games every week and my wife loves the scratchcards. Even when I cynically announce that I win £1 every week by not playing the lottery, the old adage is thrown back at me: You’ve got to be in it to win it.