National Lottery Ramps Up 25th Anniversary Celebrations

Updated: Friday 26th July 2019

As the 25th anniversary of the National Lottery quickly approaches, Camelot has stepped up its celebrations. Since reaching out for stories about people helped by National Lottery funding, Camelot launched the annuity lottery Set For Life as well as a series of upcoming media campaigns.

The First Lottery

The National Lottery’s first ever lottery draw was on the 19th November, 1994, with a jackpot of over £5.8 million (£9.8 million in today’s money, adjusting for inflation). The first numbers drawn were 30, 3, 5, 44, 14 and 22, with a bonus number of 10. The jackpot was split between seven lucky winners. Since then the National Lottery has grown considerably and is now entering its 25th year. In late 2018, Camelot announced plans to celebrate the landmark, including the launch of a brand new lottery.

New Annuity Lottery, Set For Life

Set For Life is an annuity lottery, tickets for which were officially launched on Friday 15th March. With Set For Life, you can win up to £10,000 per month, every month, for the next 30 years. The first draw took place on Monday 18th March, and future draws will take place every Monday and Thursday.

Asked to comment on the new lottery, Camelot CEO Nigel Railton said:

“We’re really pleased to be enhancing our range of National Lottery draw-based games with the introduction of Set For Life. Annuity games really appeal to a growing number of people who like the idea of winning a prize paid out in regular instalments over the long term... It will offer National Lottery players something completely new.”

Camelot hopes to appeal more to young people with the introduction of Set For Life, securing the valuable funding the National Lottery creates - as well as granting more people the opportunity to win big.

National Lottery Celebrates Good Causes

Camelot also wants to focus celebrations on the money raised through the National Lottery for Good Causes – a fund directed by National Lottery to benefit charities, trusts and non-profit organisations across the country. It did so by reaching out to local communities and small charities for individual stories of how they were touched by the Good Causes money.

The result is a series of mini-documentaries highlighting the lives of those helped by the Good Causes fund, made by content agency The Wild. The first video was released on the Monday, 1st April and is entitled “Project Celt”.

“Project Celt” regards Beth Lewis – a young woman suffering from Apert Syndrome – and how her mental and physical health has been improved by a lottery-funded equine therapy centre in Llanfynydd. In the documentary, Beth addresses lottery players, and their impact on her health: “I would like to say to the people that put money on the lottery, thank you so much. You have helped a project which has helped me to become a person called Beth.”

The next mini-documentary will follow 18-year-old professional BMX rider Kye Whyte as he trains for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, and will be released towards the end of this week.

Dylan Davenport, managing director of The Wild, had this to say of the series: “The National Lottery Good Causes does so many amazing things and this was our chance to shine a light on them. The stories of Beth and Kye are truly inspirational, and I’m beyond proud that The Wild, as our first project as a new agency, were able to bring them to life through these documentaries.”

25 Years of Good Causes

Over £39 billion has been raised by Good Causes since the National Lottery’s inception in 1994. It has funded over 535,000 projects, from grass-roots projects to national landmarks – including renowned North-East landmark The Angel of the North, and Wembley Stadium.

Jonathan Tuchner, Director of National Lottery Promotions, commented on the anniversary celebrations: “The 25th anniversary is a moment in time for a step change to make people more aware of the positive contribution and the extraordinary things the National Lottery does across the country.”

If you’re interested in joining in on the anniversary celebrations, you can buy Set For Life tickets from any authorised retailer in the UK; take a look at our handy guide for how to play.

Other lotteries, including but not limited to EuroMillions, Thunderball and Lotto also go some way to funding Good Causes. Find out more about each lottery on our Help and Information page.

Published: Thursday 4th April 2019

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