The National Lottery of the UK is one of the most popular and well known tax free, lump sum lotteries in the world.

It is administered by the Camelot Group plc; who were awarded the license to run the UK National Lotto in May 1994 and have been doing a great job ever since the very first draw on 19th November 1994.

The Camelot Group itself began as a consortium of 4 separate shareholders, all established companies in themselves. This makes the British national lottery quite unique among the euro lottery and global lottery world as it is run by private companies and is not state-run.

The Lottery Commission regulates all UK national lotto operations and looks after the interests of lottery players and the UK’s interests in the lottery.

In 2002, as a measure to fight a reduction in sales figures, this lottery was rebranded as Lotto and has enjoyed an even stronger market position since.

Over the years, more and more games have been added to the UK lottery portfolio and together, these games are still collectively known as the National (UK) Lottery, with the main draw being the UK Lotto.

These other games in Camelot’s portfolio include Lotto Hotpicks, Thunderball, Dream Number, Daily Play, Euromillions & scratchcards.

The UK Lotto is the main jackpot style game offered by the UK National Lottery – it is a traditional 6/49 game that is so popular, it is played by the majority of the British population. The UK Lotto is the game that creates more millionaires in Britain than any other.

The jackpot for the UK Lotto usually starts at around £4.5 million and “rolls over” each time the jackpot is not won. This is then added onto the following draw’s jackpot and increases in size each draw until somebody wins it when it will revert to the starting jackpot sum of approx. £4.5 million.

The National Lotto began as a once per week draw on Saturdays but as popularity grew it began a Wednesday draw on 5th February 1997.

The UK Lotto produces jackpots that can reach huge figures and has reached £42 million in the past.

The UK National Lottery uses what’s known as a 6/49 matrix - which means that when playing the Lotto, you need to select 6 numbers from a pool of numbers from 1 to 49 – if you match all 6 numbers drawn then you will be a jackpot winner.

As well as the 6 main numbers, a 7th number is drawn. This is the bonus number and is drawn after the 6 main numbers.

In addition to the jackpot itself, there are 4 other ways in which you can win on the UK Lotto - with prizes to be won if you match either 5 main numbers plus the bonus number, 5 main numbers, 4 main numbers or even just 3 main numbers.

A “Lucky Dip” facility is available when playing the UK Lotto, EuroMillions or Thunderball - the same as the “Quick Pick” facility that is used in many USA lotteries & Canadian lotteries – which means that you can ask the lottery retailer or computer to randomly select all your National Lottery numbers for you.

UK Lotto-Thunderball-Euromillions Lucky Dip  Random Number Generator - Click On the Buttons Below to Generate Some Numbers Your numbers will open in the top left in a new small window. To generate more numbers you MUST close [X] this small window first. Javascript must be enabled in your browser for this widget to work, The buttons below will not work unless it is.

So, playing the UK Lottery is easy…just select your own 6 numbers or request them to be randomly generated for you by using the “Lucky Dip” option.

The cost of playing the UK Lotto is just £1 per 6 number selection.

Whilst there is nothing to stop people of different nationalities actually playing the UK National Lottery, it is generally accepted that you need to be a resident UK citizen to play the National Lottery online.

However, with a variety of online lottery ticket sales agencies such as TheLotter now available who are both authorized and genuine - you are able to select your UK Lotto numbers online and purchase your tickets without worrying about where in the world you are living.

A perfect example of how people from overseas can play the UK Lotto is by playing in one of VWD’s UK Lottery syndicates. These multi-win syndicates are open to almost all countries across the world.

So, if you are from outside the UK…