How to Play UK Lotto: Rules, Odds & Draw Times
UK Lotto is the National Lottery's original flagship game and the one most people mean when they say "the lottery" in Britain. Here's exactly how it works and how its odds compare to the other lotteries on LottoScopeX.
Where you can play
UK Lotto is sold exclusively in the United Kingdom, operated by Allwyn (the National Lottery's current licence holder). Tickets are available at retailers across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, as well as through the National Lottery's official app and website. It has run continuously since the National Lottery launched in November 1994, making it one of the longest-running lotteries LottoScopeX tracks.
How to play
Choose 6 main numbers from 1 to 59. Matching all 6 wins the jackpot. A seventh number, the Bonus Ball, is drawn separately after the main 6 — matching 5 main numbers plus the Bonus Ball wins a fixed £1 million prize, but it never affects the jackpot itself. There are prize tiers all the way down to matching just 2 main numbers, which wins a free Lucky Dip entry into the next draw.
Draw schedule and ticket price
Draws take place twice a week — Wednesday and Saturday evenings, at 20:00 UK time. A standard line costs £2. If the jackpot rolls over five times without a winner, the following draw becomes a "Must Be Won" draw: the jackpot is guaranteed to be paid out, cascading down to whichever tier does have winners if no one matches all 6.
Jackpot size and odds
The minimum guaranteed jackpot resets to around £2 million after a win, and climbs from there with every rollover — there's no fixed cap on how high it can go. The odds of matching all 6 numbers are 1 in 45,057,474. See our full odds comparison across all 9 lotteries for how that's calculated. The biggest UK Lotto jackpot on record is £66.1 million, won on 9 January 2016 and split between two ticket holders.
A brief history
The National Lottery launched its Lotto game on 19 November 1994, originally as a 6-from-49 format. The matrix was widened to 6-from-59 in October 2015 to make the jackpot harder to win and grow larger, and the Bonus Ball was introduced early on as a way to reward players who narrowly missed the jackpot. It remains the National Lottery's best-known draw today.
See real UK Lotto statistics
LottoScopeX tracks every UK Lotto draw with colourful ball displays just like the latest result — browse UK Lotto results, number frequencies & probability patterns.