National Lottery

The National Lottery in the UK has been going a lot longer than many people realise as it actually started in the November of 1994. At the time there was a lot of hope of the lottery and some people even thought that the option to join and play the lottery might even increase numeracy skills across the UK. During its early days the lottery attracted plenty of media publicity and it was not uncommon for the winning numbers to be printed in national daily newspapers.

Not only did the papers publish the winning numbers they also played the odds game of how many times a particular number came up and whether it could be due again that week. There was no expertise in the speculations about which numbers might occur, but many people had a lot of fun guessing just what numbers might roll out of the little box the next week. The real fact of the matter is that the way the lottery is played makes it impossible to second guess what numbers might come up as they all have the same chance of falling out of the box.

In the UK lottery, there are some rules in place as to how the prize money should be allocated. In order to win the lottery you have to have chosen all six numbers that come up, players also have a chance to win on the bonus ball, which is an extra number.

With six numbers you stand a chance of winning around 2 million pounds in prize money, although it is possible for that amount to be 20 million, as has happened on occasion. It is also possible for people who get 3 of the main numbers to win some prize money. However, for every UK lottery ticket that you buy, only 50 pence of it actually goes towards the prize money.

Even if you don’t happen to win a serious cash prize on the national lottery, some experts suggest that there are other benefits to playing the lottery than purely a cash win.

As we found earlier only half of the pound that you spend on a lottery ticket actually goes into prize money of the rest, some goes in tax to the government, and some is used for local community projects.

If your community places a bid for lottery funding and wins, then the resultant project has to be proved to be of value to the local community. Many community groups that have sprung up in the last fifteen years or so owe their start up to some lottery funding.

Some lottery money goes to the UK film industry. If you had ever wondered why and how the UK film industry has burgeoned and changed in recent years, it is due to the millions of pounds of lottery money that the Government have pledged to help the industry.

Lottery money also goes to help and support up and coming athletes to get them ready for the next Olympic Games. So next time you buy your lottery ticket, you’ll know that some of it is going to some very good causes, even if that cause is not yet you.