The National Lottery Draws

The National Lottery Draws (previously The National Lottery Live) is the television programme that broadcasts the drawing of the National Lottery in the United Kingdom. Since January 2013, the programme, usually broadcast by BBC One, airs only on Saturday nights.

Presenters

The first show was presented by Noel Edmonds. After the first show, it was either co-presented by Anthea Turner and Gordon Kennedy, or Bob Monkhouse, all of them assisted by the psychic Mystic Meg. Carol Vorderman had a segment during the early years of the show whereby, she would use mathematical techniques to predict the winning numbers. When Gordon left, Anthea remained as solo host.

Current presenters are Gaby Roslin and Ore Oduba.

The voice-overs are provided by Alan Dedicoat, In the event of Alan Dedicoat being unavailable, commentary is provided by fellow BBC Radio 2 announcer Charles Nove.

National Lottery (United Kingdom)

The National Lottery is the state-franchised national lottery in the United Kingdom.

It is operated by Camelot Group, to whom the licence was granted in 1994, 2001 and again in 2007. The lottery is regulated by the National Lottery Commission, and was established by the government of John Major in 1994.

All prizes are paid as a lump sum and are tax-free. Of all money spent on National Lottery games, 50% goes to the prize fund, 28% to "good causes" as set out by Parliament (though some of this is considered by some to be a form of "stealth tax" levied to support the Big Lottery Fund, a fund constituted to support public spending), 12% to the UK Government as duty, 5% to retailers as commission, and a total of 5% to operator Camelot, with 4.5% to cover operating costs and 0.5% as profit. Lottery tickets and scratch cards (introduced in 1995) may be bought only by people of at least 16 years of age.

History

A statute of 1698 provided that in England lotteries were by default illegal unless specifically authorised by statute. Early English state lotteries included the Million Lottery (1694) and the Malt Lottery (1697). These Lotteries were part of a series of financial experiments by the English government including recoinage and the foundation of the Bank of England to raise the capital available to the state.