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 (Ireland) jackpots, partly so that people living near the border with Northern Ireland would not abandon Lotto when the 6/49 British National Lottery began operations on 14 November 1994. At the same time, the National Lottery introduced computer-generated "quick picks" as an alternative to marking numbers on paper playslips. Some retailers now only offer the quick-pick option. For draws beginning on 26 September 1998, the National Lottery increased the cost of a line of Lotto from £0.50 to £0.75. At this time it also doubled the game's starting jackpot to £1 million and increased most of the game's smaller prizes by