National Lottery

National Lottery Sister Sites 2024

There’s only one National Lottery. There’s no gambling site like it in the UK, nor anywhere else in Europe. The National Lottery – or “Lotto,” as it’s sometimes known – is a unique event in the United Kingdom and has been ever since it was launched in the 1990s. It would be no exaggeration to say that from a cultural and charitable point of view, the UK National Lottery changed the face of the country. You won’t find anything exactly like it elsewhere because the UK Gambling Commission wouldn’t allow anything else on the same scale to exist, but there are some vague comparables out there. They’re not run by Camelot or connected to the “real” National Lottery – but they’re still lotteries. We’ll take them one at a time and cover the differences between these sites and the National Lottery.

Lottoland

Lottoland, run by EU Lotto Ltd, is technically not a lottery site. Instead, it’s a compendium site that offers access to a variety of different lotteries around the British Isles. The National Lottery itself isn’t one of them. Lottoland could be called a National Lottery sister site, but it isn’t a National Lottery comparison site. The Irish Lottery is the largest of the individual lotteries you can place a wager on through Lottoland, but if you want to put your eggs in a variety of different baskets, access is also provided to PowerBall, Millionaire, Eurojackpot, Cash4Life, MegaMillions, and a handful of lotteries with charity connections. The site also has a few instant-win scratchcards to play with if there isn’t a lottery available that takes your fancy at the time of your visit. That’s one of the bigger differences between Lottoland and the National Lottery.

Health Lottery

The Health Lottery’s main selling point is that it’s cheaper to play than the National Lottery, and it supports smaller charities that make a difference to local communities. This is the closest of our comparable National Lottery sister sites because it’s the largest lottery in the UK, save for the National Lottery itself. It also contains a neat feature for those who don’t want to wait for the next scheduled lottery draw to take place. If you’re in a hurry and you want your lottery fix immediately, there’s a £25K draw every three minutes at the site. The Health Lottery also differs from the National Lottery in that it has a branded online slots and casino website attached to it called “Health Games,” although that site is run by a different casino network company and doesn’t have much in common with The Health Lottery other than its logo. It’s different from the National Lottery because of the philosophy behind it, but aside from that and the lower maximum value of its prize pots, it’s a highly comparable lottery service.

Postcode Lottery

The Postcode Lottery is a National Lottery sister site that was born from a simple idea. A few years ago, there was a GP and healthcare crisis in the UK, with people receiving different standards of care depending on where they lived. The press called it “the postcode lottery.” Somebody decided to take that phrase, turn it into a positive, and have it become the basis of a popular lottery site. The Postcode Lottery is a site that pays out jackpots and prizes based not on numbered balls that come out of machines but on where you live. All you need to do is sign up with your address (UK customers only), and your postcode might be drawn out of the metaphorical hat as the top prize winner. If it is, every participating player on your street shares the jackpot prize. If you’re the only player on the street who participates, the entire pot is yours. The idea is basic, but it’s also wildly popular and donates 33% of all ticket revenue to charity. The main difference between the Postcode Lottery and the National Lottery is – quite obviously – the way in which prizes are allocated and distributed, but they’re still comparable in the way that they offer potentially massive rewards for low ticket prizes.

Irish Lottery

Here’s a strange fact. The UK National Lottery isn’t open to players in Ireland, but the Irish Lottery is open to players in the UK. We don’t know why that is, but it means we can treat the Irish Lottery as a National Lottery sister site, so we’ll take it. The format of the Irish Lottery is very similar to that of the UK Lotto, and the average weekly prize pot is fairly comparable, too. On top of that, you can also play EuroMillions through the Irish Lottery. The largest win ever paid out by the Irish Lottery is 19 million Euros, which is a long way short of the National Lottery record, but we’re still reasonably sure that you’d be able to give up work and stop worrying about your finances if you were ever to win a prize of that size. For legal reasons, we should point out that Irishlottery.com isn’t directly connected to Premier Lotteries Ireland, but you can play the Irish Lottery through the site. Of all the comparable National Lottery sister sites, this is the most similar. The biggest difference between them is their country of origin, but aside from that, you’ll find that they have a lot in common.

Can National Lottery be trusted?

★★★★★

National Lottery is a 3-star trusted casino.

1. UKGC License	The National Lottery is granted a special licence to operate by the UK Gambling Commission. This licence is reviewed every ten years.
2. UKGC Fines	Camelot was fined £3.15m in March 2022 because of malfunctions with its mobile app that sometimes caused a “non-winning” message to be displayed next to a customer’s winning numbers.
3. Customer Service	The National Lottery can be contacted by email, telephone or live chat via the links provided on its website.
4. Trustpilot Score	After over 2500 reviews, the National Lottery holds a terrible rating of 1.2 out of 5.
5. Company Location	Camelot is a UK-based company.
6. Visible T&C’s	N/A – The National Lottery does not offer promotions.
7. Social Media Presence	You’ll find official National Lottery accounts on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter/X.
8. Number of Sister Sites	There are no National Lottery sister sites. Those which we have provided here are for comparision purposes only.
9. Games portfolio	N/A – The National Lottery hosts a small number of instant win games but focuses primarily on its unique offerings, and shouldn’t be ranked on this basis.
10. Gamstop links	You’ll see the Gamstop logo in the lower half of the National Lottery homepage.
Overall SCORE >	★★★★★ – 3/5 Stars

National Lottery Review 2024

It’s hard to imagine anybody in the UK who isn’t familiar with the National Lottery. For a lot of people, it’s the first thing they ever placed a bet on. We all know the story behind it. After years of behind-the-scenes negotiating with the UK Government and the UK Gambling Commission, the National Lottery finally gained approval for its first draw in 1994. That first draw was a massive event watched by tens of millions of people, and from that initial success, the Lottery has snowballed. Today, it donates around £30m per week to charity and has provided financial support to more than 560,000 good causes. The National Lottery has changed the lives of the people who’ve won big from it, but it’s also changed the lives of people who’ve never played it.

New Player Monthly Offers and Monthly Promotions

There are no promotions of any kind at the National Lottery website. The special and specific licence that Camelot holds with the UK Gambling Commission wouldn’t allow for them. There’s a fine range of games and there are entertainment options other than the lottery draws, but there are no discounts, deposit matches, free spins, free games or anything else. The National Lottery simply isn’t that kind of gambling website.

Pros and Cons – What Are The Benefits of Playing The National Lottery?

The benefits of playing the National Lottery are almost self-explanatory. If you landed a big win at an online slots site, you might win enough to go on a nice holiday or buy a luxury car. If you win the National Lottery, it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll ever have to work again if you don’t want to. There are a few slots and casino games that can make you a millionaire, but the National Lottery almost guarantees it. You also get the satisfaction of knowing that a portion of what you spend on playing the National Lottery goes to a good cause, no matter whether you win or lose.

The biggest drawback of the National Lottery goes hand in hand with its biggest upside. Your life will be changed forever if you win, but the chances of you actually doing so are extremely remote. Most players concur that big wins are even less likely now than they were five years ago because of a chance in the format of the lottery and an expansion beyond the original 49 balls. Between November 2021 and February 2022, nobody won the jackpot at all. That’s probably an indication that the bar has been set too high.

Featured Slots and Casino Games

We’re in unusual territory here because there are no online slots at the National Lottery site. This is yet another reason why the National Lottery site is so unique when compared to almost every other casino and gambling site in the UK. Over the years, though, it’s added a whole series of games that run either alongside or as alternatives to the main lotto game. Here’s a quick rundown for those of you who’ve never come across them before. 

Euromillions: As per the Euromillions lotto, this is the game that offers the biggest jackpots. It’s played by well over one hundred million people all over Europe and routinely offers prizes in excess of £50m to (very) lucky winners. However, there are so many people playing Euromillions that there’s no guarantee that the winner will even live in the UK. You might be more likely to catch a flying pig in a net than win this lottery, but you’re allowed to dream. 

Set For Life: Rather than paying out a large cash lump sum, the “Set For Life” game pays one winner £10,000 every month for the next thirty years, thereby providing them with a secure income for either the rest of their life or at least the majority of the rest of their life. 

Thunderball: Thunderball is like a mini version of the National Lottery and was the first of the National Lottery side-games to be introduced by Camelot. It’s only £1 to play, it guarantees a top prize of £500K, and there can only be one winner. If you win Thunderball, you win the whole pot. 

Lotto Hotpicks: Winning the National Lottery is both difficult and unlikely. Even the Lottery itself acknowledges that. If you’d rather improve your odds by reducing the number of numbers you have to guess correctly, the National Lottery will let you do that with the Lotto Hotpicks game. The prize is also proportionately reduced, though, with a maximum return of £350K. 

Instant Win Games: The National Lottery’s small selection of “instant win” games are generally either scratchcards or prize-picker games, with no online slots within the collection. The top prize offered by any of the individual games is £1m, although smaller prizes are available – and far more likely to be won. 

Deposits and Withdrawals

The most commonly used payment method on the National Lottery website is Direct Debit. Draws are held twice a week, and people don’t like to miss out. By setting up a Direct Debit, they can ensure that they’re always in with a chance. Failing that, debit card transactions are approved. There are no other ways to fund a National Lottery account.

Withdrawal terms will vary depending on what you’ve won and which game you were playing when you won it. If your prize is small and you bought a ticket in person, the fastest way to claim your win is to go to the shop you bought it from and get it in cash. If you’ve won a huge amount, there will be a large delay while the win is verified and the legal aspects are sorted out. It’s impossible to give standardised withdrawal terms for the National Lottery: no such thing exists.

Customer Support and Licensing

In theory, the National Lottery website provides live chat over the internet and telephone support during core business hours. In practice, live chat might not be available even if you visit during what should be a quiet time in the middle of the day. If you can’t get an answer from either avenue, your best bet would be to go to Twitter and hope there’s a customer service representative available there.

The National Lottery holds a unique licence with the UK Gambling Commission. It’s periodically reviewed and could theoretically be removed from Camelot and awarded to another entity after any such review.

National Lottery – The Verdict

The National Lottery probably isn’t what it used to be. There was never a strong chance that any individual player was likely to win it, but the changes to its format mean that a substantial win is now more unlikely than ever before. That being said, it’s the only competition of its kind in the country, and people still like to dream that they’re going to win it one day. So long as the price of a ticket remains accessible to the British public, this will always be the UK’s most popular gambling game.

What are players saying about the National Lottery?

Here are our condensed / readers digest summaries of recent player reviews of the National Lottery. The reviews were written by people who’ve used the National Lottery as a product and wanted to share specific feedback about their experience with the brand.

• 06-Nov-2023 by Paul:
  I won’t bother with a detailed review; we all know what’s going on with the National Lottery. It’s better to give directly to those in need rather than through this system, which seems to lack transparency and genuine benefit. – source: Trustpilot
• 05-Nov-2023 by Panteleimon:
  They’re simply thieves! Don’t waste even a penny, especially on the instant games – it’s a consistent loss. – source: Trustpilot
• 05-Nov-2023 by John:
  Another disappointing experience with the Euro and Lotto. After many lines and tickets, the best I got was a free ticket. It’s been 25 years of this, and it feels like we’re all being taken for fools. – source: Trustpilot
• 04-Nov-2023 by Abzyguy:
  It’s a total sham. Claims of creating ten millionaires last week – but can anyone actually confirm they exist? I’m considering starting a transparent lottery of my own with verified winners. – source: Trustpilot
• 03-Nov-2023 by Lee:
  I’d rate them zero if I could. It used to be fun with occasional wins, but now it feels like greed has taken over. Transparency on where the money goes is seriously lacking. – source: Trustpilot
• 01-Nov-2023 by Ian:
  The odds are extremely poor, and I’ve decided to stop wasting my money on the Lottery. There are far better ways to spend my earnings. – source: Trustpilot
• 31-Oct-2023 by Michelle:
  I stopped playing the lottery three years ago, and I think everyone else should too. It’s the biggest scam, and draws aren’t even broadcast live anymore. – source: Trustpilot
• 29-Oct-2023 by Christopher:
  It’s a modern-day scam. I’ve been playing the same numbers for over ten years with no significant win. The online instant wins seem rigged to give the bare minimum back – it’s a disgraceful system. – source: Trustpilot
• 27-Oct-2023 by Iosif:
  Playing this is likely to result in losing your money, offering only the experience of what not to play. – source: Trustpilot
• 26-Oct-2023 by Joseph:
  I’ve played the National Lottery for over 20 years without missing a draw and have won nothing. It’s a massive con, making punters believe they could win. – source: Trustpilot

The National Lottery Sponsorship Information

As The National Lottery is a project and institute that enriches communities as much as they improve the bank accounts of their lottery winners, they aren’t short of official sponsorships and charitable sponsorships.One of the biggest sponsorship deals was announced in December 2021, when The National Lottery signed a new commercial deal with ITV. The contract included advertising space between two of ITV’s biggest Saturday nights shows, Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway and The Masked Singer. However, this wasn’t the first time that The National Lottery partnered with ITV. In the previous deal, during an episode of Saturday Night Takeaway, the infamous ITV name, Stephen Mulhern, appeared to award a £350,000 funding boost to a supported charity of one lucky random viewer of the show. This cameo enforced the lottery’s MO of strengthening communities with their crowd-funded prize funds.

Currently, the lottery raises over £30 million a week for good causes. The list of good causes they fund is almost infinite, from arts funding to heritage funding to helping local charities, their charitable influence in the UK does an unimaginable amount of good. At the last count, they had contributed to over 650,000 charities and awarded over 235 grants in every UK postcode district! The adverts that aired between the hit Saturday night shows on ITV were created by Aardman via a multi-platform bespoke licencing deal.

The National Lottery Adverts

The National Lottery has been a coveted British institution since 1994, since then, they have made more than 6,300 millionaires, awarded more than £53 billion in prizes and created a fair few adverts during their time. They also regularly create videos celebrating their winners of the Project of the year, underlining responsible gambling practices and running heart-warming video campaigns. In one of their recently produced videos, they showed how the National Lottery stood together with the people that stood up against adversity during the pandemic in 2021. Their ad campaign paid tribute to the “lockdown legends”, who played a pivotal role in helping the vulnerable members of communities. It was quite the tear-jerker, and a refreshing change from the corporate narratives on compassion – The National Lottery actually play their part in the betterment of the UK.

One of their most popular adverts is the “when we all play a little, fun stuff happens” TV ad which shows a man exploring a town after playing The National Lottery on their mobile. It shows local businesses thriving, clean beaches and well-invested-in sports areas, such as skate parks. Perhaps most memorably, the ad showed how playing The National Lottery or using its casino site can uphold history by allowing battle re-enactment groups to do their thing. Just after Vikings have charged across the clean beach, one of them storms into a natural history museum which is also funded by the National Lottery. The feel-good ad definitely does the job it intended. A similar ad aired during the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which highlighted how playing The National Lottery can help our athletes to get to the top of their game.

The National Lottery on Social Media

If you want to keep up to date with all of the positive developments that are happening in the UK thanks to The National Lottery, Twitter is the place to go. Following the National Lottery is the ultimate good news feed, and it is also a great way to keep up to date with all of the big lotteries that shouldn’t be missed out on. They regularly post about the Euro Millions lottery, which runs every Friday.

The UK National Lottery also has an official Facebook page that is followed by 12K people. Facebook is also a good way to get in touch with the customer service team with regards to queries – just don’t do what some of their followers do and ask for them to tell you the winning numbers! It is more than easy to check via the site or app.

The National Lottery Casino Theme & Layout

Everything about the user-face on the web version of the site is effortlessly accessible. Straight away, you can see the most exciting upcoming lottery draw and the tool that allows you to effortlessly check your results. When exploring the site a little more, you will find the instant win games, just under a few of the winners & good news stories which make The National Lottery website such a wholesome place to be. Via the website, players can even view local Lottery-funded projects in their postcode, look where the money they spend on the site goes and even apply for funding. The website is always accepting sports, music, history, heritage, and environmental funding applications.

The National Lottery Parent Company

The Camelot Group launched the National Lottery in 1994, and they still retain ownership to this day; they pride themselves on being like no other corporate entity through their philanthropy that raises and donates billions of pounds every year. Impressively, 95% of their revenue either goes to their winners or society, and they are massive advocates of healthy and responsible play with all of their gambling products.