National Lottery (United Kingdom) National Lottery is franchised to a private operator; the Camelot Group was awarded the franchise on 25 May 1994. The first draw took place on 19 November 1994 with a television programme presented by Noel Edmonds. The first numbers drawn were 30, 3, 5, 44, 14 and 22, the bonus was 10, and seven jackpot winners shared a prize of £5,874,778. Tickets became available on the Isle of Man on 2 December 1999 at the request of Tynwald. A second lottery draw, Thunderball, was introduced by Camelot on 12 June 1999. The National Lottery undertook a major rebranding programme in
National Lottery (United Kingdom) draw was set at £1 per board from its introduction, and increased to £2 in October 2013. The draw is conducted twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays, except that a draw on Christmas Day is moved to Christmas Eve. Saturday draws started on 19 November 1994, under the name 'National Lottery'; the first Wednesday draw was on 5 February 1997. All of the draws are shown live on the official website at 20:30. Lotto was originally called "The National Lottery", but was renamed "Lotto" in an update in 2002 after ticket sales decreased. Lotto is by far the most