page_title: Gambling in the United Kingdom
section_title: National Lottery
hierarchical_section_title: Gambling in the United Kingdom / Gambling forms / Lotteries / National Lottery
caption_attribution_description: Håll tummarna!
context_page_description: Gambling in the United Kingdom is regulated by the Gambling Commission on behalf of the government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport under the Gambling Act 2005. This Act of Parliament significantly updated the UK's gambling laws, including the introduction of a new structure of protections for children and vulnerable adults, as well as bringing the burgeoning Internet gaming sector within British regulation for the first time.
  Gambling for centuries has been a main recreational activity in Great Britain. Horse racing has been a favourite theme for over three centuries. It has been heavily regulated. Historically much of the opposition comes from evangelical Protestants, and from social reformers.
context_section_description: The United Kingdom's state-franchised lottery is known as the National Lottery, which was set up under government licence in 1993.
  Several games are run under this brand, including Lotto and Thunderball. As with other lotteries players choose a set of numbers, say 6 from 50, with six numbers then being drawn at random. Players win cash prizes depending on how many numbers they match.
  The National Lottery launched a pan-European "super-lottery", called EuroMillions, in 2004. Currently this is available in nine countries.
  In the United Kingdom, the national lottery has so far raised several billions of pounds for Good Causes, a programme which distributes money via grants. 28% of lottery revenue goes towards the fund, along with all unclaimed prizes. Additionally, 12% goes to the state. The prize fund is 45% of revenue, with the remaining 15% going towards running costs and profits for the lottery organisers and ticket sellers.
  The odds of specific combinations occurring in the United Kingdom national lottery are as follows:
caption: EuroMillions tickets.
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