Wednesday’s Lotto draw produced a single winner of the £4.3 million jackpot, and two other players won £1 million each by matching five main numbers plus the bonus ball. Andy Carter, senior winners’ adviser at Allwyn, said it was the fourth jackpot win on the game in as many weeks. Saturday’s jackpot is estimated at £2 million.
Who runs it
The National Lottery is regulated by the Gambling Commission. Allwyn Entertainment has operated it since 1 February 2024, taking over from Camelot, which held the franchise from 25 May 1994. The mechanics here are plain enough: of every pound spent, around 53% goes to prizes and 25% to “good causes” set by Parliament. The government takes 12% as lottery duty and retailers 4% in commission. The operator gets 5%, of which 4% covers costs and 1% is profit.
The catch is that some people regard the good-causes share as a “stealth tax” supporting the National Lottery Community Fund. Prizes are tax-free and paid as a lump sum, except for Set For Life and Powerball, which pay out over a set period. Since 22 April 2021 buyers must be 18, up from 16.
How Lotto pays
Players pick six numbers from 1 to 59. Six balls are drawn, plus a bonus ball that matters only to those with five correct numbers. Six prize tiers start at two matches, and the chance of hitting all six is 1 in 45,057,474. Draws run on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Thunderball, the second game, was introduced by Camelot on 12 June 1999 during the first episode of Winning Lines.
In the latest Lotto HotPicks draw, nobody matched all five digits for the £175,000 prize, though three players matched four numbers and took £6,500 each. A Thunderball player matched five numbers plus the Thunderball for £500,000.
A long history
On closer reading, the idea is old. A 1698 statute made lotteries illegal unless specifically authorised, yet the Bank of England had run state lotteries to raise money for “good causes” and to fund wars. The last of them took place on 18 October 1826 with a prize fund of nearly £1.5 million. A 1934 Act, liberalised further in 1956 and 1976, legalised small lotteries. A National Health Service Lottery piloted in 1988 was cancelled for legal reasons before its first draw.
John Major’s government set up the modern lottery through the National Lottery etc. Act 1993. The first draw came on 19 November 1994. The numbers were 30, 3, 5, 44, 14 and 22, with 10 as the bonus, and seven winners shared £5,874,778. The National Lottery Act 1998 created the National Lottery Commission and the New Opportunities Fund for health, education and environment projects.
There is a cost side. After the lottery began, the share of people spending 10% or more of income on gambling products rose from 0.4% to 1.7%. A National Lottery survey of 2,000 people found 61% would share a jackpot with a partner, but only 52% with their children, ahead of a £318 million Powerball draw.
Sources
- National Lottery (United Kingdom)
- Lucky Lotto player scoops £4.3m as ‘fourth jackpot won in as many weeks’
- The Lotto and Lotto Plus 1 and Lotto 5 Max results for Saturday, 24 October 2026
Photo: Andy Li / Unsplash (Unsplash License)
