UK Lotto To Change in November as Annuity Game is Announced
UK Lotto fans can look forward to playing for bigger, fixed prizes from later this year after it was confirmed that changes will be made to the game. Camelot, the country’s National Lottery operator, is also set to launch a new annuity game in 2019 and hold even more special draws for EuroMillions players.
Lotto Changes
The National Lottery is making changes to Lotto ahead of the draw on Wednesday 21st November, in a bid to freshen the game up and maximise returns to good causes. The cost of a ticket will remain £2 and you will still pick six numbers from 1 to 59, but new rules will see the jackpot won more often.
It will only be possible for the top prize to rollover five times before it has to be won. If there are no ‘Match 6’ winners in the special ‘Must-Be-Won’ draw, the jackpot money will be shared between all the other players who have won cash prizes.
The base jackpot is set to go up from £3.1 million on a Saturday to £3.8 million, or from £1.8 million to £2 million on a Wednesday. There will be fixed prizes in all the other tiers, giving players the opportunity to win larger cash awards than were previously available.
The prize for matching five main numbers plus the Bonus Ball will be set at £1 million, while you will win £1,750 if you are in the ‘Match 5’ category. Match four numbers and you will win £140, while the prize for matching three main numbers will go up from £25 to £30. If you match two main numbers you will continue to receive a free Lucky Dip.
Lotto HotPicks will be unaffected by the changes, but the Lotto Raffle will come to an end to help pay for the bigger prizes available in the main game.
EuroMillions Changes
The UK National Lottery has promised to make special EuroMillions draws ‘bigger and better’ from spring 2019. There are currently two guaranteed prizes of £1 million in the Millionaire Maker in every standard draw, but this will go down to one millionaire per draw to help create funds for more special events. The first one will give away 40 prizes of £1 million in the spring, and more big draws are in the pipeline for the summer.
New Annuity Game
A new annuity lottery is also set to be introduced next year to give players a different type of game to enjoy. Rather than offering huge one-off jackpots, annuity games offer a regular income over a long period of time. The precise game format and prize structure for the new lottery have yet to be finalised, but the UK National Lottery does expect the top prize to be ‘thousands of pounds every month for at least 25 years’.
Explaining the thinking behind the annuity game, Camelot chief executive Nigel Railton said that extensive research had gone into analysing what players wanted from the lottery. He said: “It was clear from the review that we needed to create a more appealing and balanced range of games that offer something for everyone.”
Irish Lotto Changes
The changes to UK Lotto come hot on the heels of the Irish National Lottery’s announcement last week that alterations would be made to some of its games. The top prize in Lotto Plus 1 has doubled from €500,000 to €1 million, while new prize tiers have also been added to Lotto Plus 1 and Lotto Plus 2 and the Lotto Plus Raffle prize has gone up to €500.