UK Lotto Facts
- UK Lotto Jackpot Rollovers
- UK Lotto History and Important Facts
- UK Lotto Unclaimed Prizes
- UK Lotto Syndicates
- Other Lottery Syndicates
If you match 3 or more winning numbers in the UK Lotto you will win a prize. Click here to see the ways to win UK Lottery Prizes and the prize amounts.
The overall odds of winning a UK National Lottery lotto prize are 1 in 54.
Click here to see the complete list of UK Lotto Odds of Winning
You can Increase your odds of winning to 1 in 13 by playing in one of our UK lotto Syndicates and match numbers every single week in the UK Lotto
Click on this link to see how our syndicates work UK lotto syndicates
1. UK Lotto Rollover Jackpots and Roll Down
The UK Lotto draw takes place twice a week on Wednesday's and Saturday's.
On each draw day 6 main numbers and 1 bonus number are drawn from the numbers 1 - 49. Once drawn the numbers are not returned to the draw machine so each number can only be drawn once.
To win the UK lotto jackpot 1st prize you must match the 6 main numbers drawn.
If no-one matches the six main numbers drawn, no-one wins the jackpot prize and it is rolled over into the next draw.
This is known as a rollover. If the jackpot is isn't won after four consecutive draws, the final jackpot will be shared out between players who match five of the six main numbers drawn plus the bonus number in the forth draw.
On the forth consecutive rollover without a jackpot winner the jackpot pool is rolled down to the second tier prize, that of 5 main numbers and the bonus ball number.
If at this stage there are still no winners the jackpot prize pool will roll down further to be shared by players who match just 5 main numbers.
On the forth consecutive rollover without a jackpot winner the jackpot pool is rolled down to the second tier prize, that of 5 main numbers and the bonus ball number.
If at this stage there are still no winners the jackpot prize pool will roll down further to be shared by players who match just 5 main numbers.
So far the UK National Lottery has not had a quadruple rollover.
2. UK National Lottery History and Important Facts
The UK National Lottery launched on Monday 14th November and 7 millions tickets had were bought in the first 12 hours.
Initially the UK National lottery was only drawn once a week on a Saturday, with the first ever draw taking place on Saturday 19 November 1994 at 8.03 pm.
An estimated Twenty five million people tuned into BBC One to watch Noel Edmonds, Anthea Turner and Gordon Kennedy host the live lottery draw show.
The first ever jackpot of £5,874,778 was shared by 7 lucky winners who each won £839,254 for matching all 6 main numbers.
The winning numbers were 3, 5, 14, 22, 30 and 40 the bonus ball number of 10
Wednesday 5 February 2007 was the first midweek draw and so the National Lottery being drawn twice a week.
The First Wednesday night Jackpot was £9,999,999 it was shared between anonymous 3 winners who won £3,333,333 each
The winning numbers that day were 9, 25, 28, 29, 31 and 35
The bonus ball number that day was number 37
No-one won the jackpot on Saturday 3 December 2004 so draw number 4 on Saturday 10 December 2004 became the first UK National Lottery rollover draw.
This first ever rollover jackpot of £17,880,003 was won by one person who wished to remain anonymous but with the winning numbers:
26, 35, 38, 43, 47 and 49 the bonus ball number was 28
Draw number 60 on Saturday 6 January 1996 became the first ever double rollover jackpot draw and also was the largest jackpot in UK National Lottery history with the huge rollover jackpot of £42,008,610
The 3 winners who also wished to remain anonymous shared the rollover jackpot with each winner taking home £14,002,870
The 3 winners each correctly matched all 6 main numbers.
The winning numbers that day were 2, 3, 4, 13, 42 and 44 bonus ball number 24
In 2002 the UK National Lottery rebranded its name to the UK Lotto
The first ever triple rollover in the now renamed UK Lotto was in draw number 880 on Saturday 29 May 2004.
6 anonymous lucky winners shared the triple rollover jackpot of £22,158,516
The 6 winners correctly matched all 6 main numbers and won £3,693,086 each.
The winning numbers that day were 1, 4, 6, 18, 19, 40 bonus ball number 30
So far the UK National Lottery has not had a quadruple rollover.
The Biggest individual jackpot winner came from draw number 893 on Wednesday 14 July 2004 when Iris Jeffery from Belfast, Northern Ireland matched all 6 main numbers and was the only winner of a rollover jackpot of £20,100,472
Her lucky numbers were 6, 27, 33, 38, 45 and 47
3. UK Lotto Unclaimed Prizes
Amazingly, since the first UK National Lottery draw on Saturday 19 November 1994
over £650 million of pounds has remained unclaimed.
Over the years, 24 tickets worth £1 Million or more have not been
claimed.
The largest unclaimed lottery prize from the UK came from the UK National Lotto
game from draw number 995 on Wednesday 6 July 2005.
When the £9.4 Million first place Jackpot was not claimed!
The ticket was purchased in Doncaster, UK and
the winning numbers were:
3, 12, 17, 36, 44 and 49. Bonus ball number 20
The jackpot prize was not claimed before the 180 day expiry deadline of 5.30pm on Monday 2 January 2006 so the prize of £9,476,995 was
given away to
the Lottery Good Causes.
In 2005 the base interest rate was 4.5%, so the interest alone for the 180 days could have been:
£1,184 and 62 pence per day
or £8,292 and 34 pence per week
Total interest for 180 days
£213,232 and 38 pence
N.B. Players have only 180 days from the day of the draw to claim their winning prize after which the prize and the interest earned is passed over to the Lottery Good Causes Fund
In contrast to the UK Lotto that can only rollover 4 times the EuroMillions can rollover 11 times.
In EuroMillions draw number 190 on Friday 28 September 2007 a guaranteed €130 million superdraw jackpot rolled down to 14 lucky players who had matched the second tier prize with 5 main numbers and only 1 lucky star.
Each of the 14 players won €9.8 million.
The winning numbers that week were 22, 30 , 34, 35 and 44 lucky star numbers 4 and 5.
From the 14 winners, 6 tickets were from the UK, 5 were from Spain, 2 were from France and 1 was from Belgium.
A winning ticket for €9.8 million from the UK was not claimed!
On 28 March 2008 the 180 day deadline in which a player in the UK must claim their lottery prize expired. The winning ticket was bought somewhere in Devon, UK but the prize was not claimed.
Under the UK regulations the prize of over €9.8 million was then given away to Lottery Good Causes
With the 2007 exchange rates this was £6,989,367 and 40 pence
4. UK Lotto Syndicates
Over 200,000 players from 131 countries around the world have played in UK Lotto and EuroMillions lottery syndicates with virtual world direct (VWD)VWD is a company who purchase lottery tickets in the UK and run
UK Lotto Syndicates which are guaranteed to match 1 main number in every UK lotto draw,
Click here to see how the UK Lotto syndicates work.
5. Other Lottery Syndicates
VWD also run Euromillions Syndicates which are guaranteed to match 2 numbers in every Euromillions lottery drawing
and Spanish Lottery Syndicates that are guaranteed to win 3 prizes in every Spanish Lottery Superdraw.
VWD's secure web site makes it easy to join a EuroMillions syndicate online
