Set For Life returns tonight, with a chance of scooping a £10,000 a month for the next 30 YEARS.
The National Lottery draw will take place at 8pm, and the results will be released a few minutes later.
Meanwhile no-one scooped the jackpot in Wednesday's Lotto, making Saturday's top prize an estimated £11.7 million.
Please gamble responsibly. And when the fun stops, stop.
Stay with our National Lottery blog and see the winning numbers as they go live…
- Joseph Gamp
What organisations benefit from Lottery funding money?
National Lottery players raise around £30million a week, which is then divided between good causes – so even if you don’t win some of the country’s most vulnerable do.
Here are some of the organisations they work with:
- Arts Council England
- Sport England
- BFI
- UK Sport
- Arts Council Of Wales
- Sport Wales
- Arts Council Of Northern Ireland
Cocaine car crash after millions win
Callie Rogers became Britain’s youngest lottery winner when she won £1.9million in 2003. The 16-year-old from Cumbria gave up her £3.60-an-hour checkout job and set about spending her money.
Within a month Callie, who was in foster care after leaving home when her biological parents split up, had also bought a £180,000 bungalow and a £76,000 home for her mum.
She ultimately blew thousands on wild parties, three boob jobs and drugs, plus around £300,000 on designer clothes.
“It was too much money for someone so young,” she told Closer Magazine.
“Even if you say your life won’t change, it does and often not for the better.”
She later described the win as a “curse” which drove her to consider suicide.
“I took paracetamol and sleeping tablets. Fortunately, my family found me and took me to hospital,” she said.
Eighteen years after her win, Callie was found to be claiming Universal Credit last month after blowing her fortune. The revelation came during a trial after she was involved in a car crash while on cocaine last December.
The 10 luckiest cities in the UK
The following map shows the top 10 luckiest lottery areas in the UK.
Lottery data shows the areas with the cities and towns with the highest number per capita of high-tier winners to scoop £50,000 or more on the National Lottery.
The National Lottery has now made over 6,100 millionaires in the UK.
Data taken from the launch of the lottery in 1994 until Sept 2019 reveals the luckiest regions.
- Joseph Gamp
Explained: How does the National Lottery work?
The National Lottery raises money to go to many ‘good causes’ and have helped give out numerous grants to those that need it most.
On their website they state: “We retain around just 1% of revenue in profit, while around 95% of total revenue goes back to winners and society. More so, we run one of the most cost-efficient major lotteries in Europe, with around 4% of total revenue spent on operating costs.
“To date, National Lottery players have helped to raise over £43 billion for Good Causes, with more than 635,000 individual awards made across the UK – the equivalent of more than 225 lottery grants in every UK postcode district.”
- Joseph Gamp
What are the most rewarding numbers
Think you’ve got the right numbers to win the EuroMillions? Here are the most popular numbers.
For Euromillions, the most popular number is 50.
Followed by: 44, 19, 4 and 30.
The most common extra numbers have been 8 and 3.
- Milica Cosic
Can lottery winners remain anonymous in the UK?
Absolutely! Lottery winners can keep their anonymity in the UK.
There is also a common myth or misconception that remaining anonymous affects the amount of money you win.
However, this is absolutely false and your decision about whether or not to go public has no bearing on your jackpot.
- Milica Cosic
Explained: What happens to unclaimed prizes?
Any cash that isn’t claimed after a total of 180 days from a game played in the UK goes to National Lottery projects across the country.
Folks in Ireland have just half that time to claim too, with only 90 days before the prize money is off the table.
Once the claim period is over, the ticket officially expires and the owner of the lottery ticket will no longer be able to claim any of their winnings.
But after that time has expired, any unclaimed prizes, plus any interest they might have accumulated in that time, are allocated to the National Lottery’s Good Causes fund instead.
This will usually then go on to help fund things like sport programmes or local community buildings or other projects.
- Milica Cosic
Cocaine car crash after millions win
Callie Rogers became Britain’s youngest lottery winner when she won £1.9million in 2003. The 16-year-old from Cumbria gave up her £3.60-an-hour checkout job and set about spending her money.
Within a month Callie, who was in foster care after leaving home when her biological parents split up, had also bought a £180,000 bungalow and a £76,000 home for her mum.
She ultimately blew thousands on wild parties, three boob jobs and drugs, plus around £300,000 on designer clothes.
“It was too much money for someone so young,” she told Closer Magazine.
“Even if you say your life won’t change, it does and often not for the better.”
She later described the win as a “curse” which drove her to consider suicide.
“I took paracetamol and sleeping tablets. Fortunately, my family found me and took me to hospital,” she said.
Eighteen years after her win, Callie was found to be claiming Universal Credit last month after blowing her fortune. The revelation came during a trial after she was involved in a car crash while on cocaine last December.
- Milica Cosic
Man wins Lottery seven times stateside
American man, Richard Lustig, is the only person in the world who has won the lottery seven times.
In an interview with ABC News, Lustig explained that his method wass to re-invest all of his winnings back into the lottery, and also recommended using hand-picked sequential numbers, as well as using the same numbers repeatedly.
Lustig’s total wins amount to a value of $1,052,205.58, which is about £766,736.95.
- Win 1: January 1993 (scratch-off ticket) – $10,000
- Win 2: August 1997 (Florida Fantasy 5) – $13,696.03
- Win 3: June 2000 (“scratch-off ticket “2nd chance drawing”) – $3,594.66
- Win 4: October 2001 (“scratch-off ticket “2nd chance drawing”) – valued at $4,966
- Win 5: January 2002 (Florida Mega Money) – $842,152.91
- Win 6: November 25, 2008 (Florida Fantasy 5) $73,658.06
- Win 7: August 9, 2010 (Florida Fantasy 5) – $98,992.92
- Milica Cosic
What organisations benefit from Lottery funding money?
National Lottery players raise around £30million a week, which is then divided between good causes – so even if you don’t win some of the country’s most vulnerable do.
Here are some of the organisations they work with:
- Arts Council England
- Sport England
- BFI
- UK Sport
- Arts Council Of Wales
- Sport Wales
- Arts Council Of Northern Ireland
What’s the scratchcard with the best odds?
According to Oddschecker, the best scratchcard to snap up is £500 Loaded with odds of just 1 in 3.15.
For just a fiver you could be in the running for £500.
In second place, with the same odds, is Full of £500s which also has a top prize of £500.
Cashword Multiplier follows close behind, which sees punters scratch off letters to reveal symbols to create full words.
When your hopes become reality
Like many people who play the lottery, Patrick and Frances Connolly “always hoped” they would win but didn’t have high hopes.
But two years ago, on New Year’s Day, they scooped £114,969,775 on the EuroMillions after playing every week for years.
When the couple, from County Armagh, Northern Ireland, found out about the “life-changing” sum, they modestly celebrated with “a cup of tea and a hug”.
They told ITV: “I always hoped we would win the lottery one day, but when we did, it would be just our luck that lots of others would win on the same day with the same numbers too.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would ever win almost £115 million.”
‘When you’re told you’re a millionaire, it feels limitless’
Roger Griffiths and his wife Lara netted £1.8million on the National Lottery in 2005.
He had worked as an IT manager and she as a performing arts teacher but both quit their jobs.
The couple enjoyed the high life and went on a lavish spending spree splashing £800,000 on a barn conversion in Yorkshire, flash cars and five-star holidays in Dubai, New York and Monaco.
Wannabe rock star Roger also spent £25,000 making a record with his old band from Lancaster University.
The couple invested in property and a beauty salon but the housing crash saw the value of their portfolio plummet.
By 2013 the money had gone and the couple had split up, each blaming each other for the reversal in their fortunes.
Roger said: “When you’re told you’re a millionaire, it feels limitless. We had played the Lottery for years – when I found out I’d won, it was overwhelming.”
Lara has revealed she has to sell her collection of designer handbags now to get by.