NEW BALLS PLEASE
Camelot’s number is up, so as a new company prepares to take over the National Lottery,
The first tickets cost £1 and around seven million were sold within the first 12 hours of the launch. Sir Richard Branson, below, contested Camelot’s licence in
2001 with
The People’s Lottery, but the Virgin boss was unsuccessful
in his bid. 6
The National Lottery is one of the world’s largest lotteries and has raised more than £45 billion for 660,000 good causes since it was first launched. In the year to March 2021, Camelot made £8.3bn in sales and raised £1.9bn for charities. It’s made more than 6,300 millionaires and employs over 1,000 people.
National Lottery operator Camelot is set to lose its licence to oversee the game after 28 years. It first started running the lottery at its launch in 1994 but rival Allwyn Entertainment is the preferred applicant to take over in 2024.
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The award of the new lottery licence follows a fiercely contested bidding process between four parties. The other applicants were Italian Lottery operator Sisal Spa, Camelot and The New Lottery Company Ltd. Despite losing out Camelot has been named “reserve applicant” and will step back in to the breach if there are any problems. 2
John Major was Prime Minister when the National Lottery first came into being. He would set out its mission by telling us: “The country will be a lot richer because of the lottery. It is in every sense the people’s lottery.”
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Allwyn Entertainment – previously known as Sazka Entertainment until last year – is a gambling group owned by Czech energy billionaire Karel Komarek. It currently operates across Europe including in Austria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Cyprus and Italy.
Noel Edmonds presented the first hour-long results show on BBC1 on November 19, 1994. The first winning numbers were 3, 5, 14, 22, 30 and 44 and the bonus number was 10. Deborah Walsh, aged 18, won a competition to press the button to start the first draw.
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The Allwyn bid chairman, Sir Keith Mills, was instrumental in winning the 2012 Olympics bid for London and in organising the Games, while its advisory board also includes the former Sainsbury’s chief executive Justin King and Lord Seb Coe. Allwyn will run the lottery for 10 years from 2024 until 2034.
4Other presenters of the results show in the early years included Dale Winton, pictured, Anthea Turner, Bob Monkhouse, Sir Terry Wogan, Carol Smillie and Ulrika Jonsson.
10Camelot announced last month that a £109.9 million EuroMillions jackpot had been won by a single UK ticketholder. It was the first EuroMillions jackpot won in the UK this year and saw the ticket-holder jump into 10th place on the National Lottery’s rich list. The country’s biggest National Lottery win was a £170 million EuroMillions jackpot won by an anonymous ticket-holder in the draw on October 8, 2019.