UK Secondary Lottery Games

Although the Lotto is the main National Lottery of the United Kingdom, the lottery organisers Camelot also offer a number of secondary lotteries, namely Thunderball, Daily Play, Lotto Hotpicks and Dream Number. These are separate games from the main lottery, but they still tend to offer substantial cash prizes.

Thunderball
The Thunderball game board contains two boxes – one with the numbers 1 to 34 and the other with the numbers 1 to 14. Players select five numbers from the first box and one number from the second box. Should a player want to have a random selection of numbers picked for them, they can buy a Lucky Dip ticket in the same was as they can for the main Lotto draw.

Thunderball prized are fixed, so there are no rollovers or roll downs. The top prize of £250,000 is won by players matching all of their numbers (five main numbers plus the Thunderball itself). Match just five main numbers and no Thunderball and the prize is £5,000. Various lesser prizes are awarded right down to a £5 prize for matching just one main number plus the Thunderball. The odds of winning any prize are just a fraction over 1 in 18.

Daily Play
Daily Play is, as the name suggests, a daily lottery which takes place six times each week, Monday through Saturday. Players select seven numbers from 1 to 27 and can win a top prize of £30,000 by matching all seven. £300 is paid to those players who match six numbers, £30 to those who match five and £5 to those who match four. There are no prizes for those who match three, two or one number, but a consolation prize of a free Lucky Dip ticket is awarded to any player failing to match any number. Overall, the odds of winning any prize are 1 in 8.

Lotto Hotpicks
Lotto Hotpicks is a draw game which takes place twice each week, usually on Wednesday and Saturday. Whereas most lottery games require the player to make a certain number of selections (for example, 6 from 49 for the main Lotto game) Lotto Hotpicks allows players to decide how many numbers they want to play – anywhere from a single number to a maximum of five numbers. The numbers 1-49 are available to choose from. Players must, however, match all the numbers they select, and so the more numbers they play, the more they stand to win if successful. The prize structure is as follows:

Dream Number
Dream Number is the newest of Camelot's "secondary" lottery games, being launched as recently as July 2006. The draw takes place once a week, and unlike other lottery games, players each receive a randomly generated seven-digit number. There are seven prize levels, and the top prize is a very handy £500,000. To win, players must get as many numbers drawn as possible – in the order they appear on the ticket. For example, if your Dream Number is 0926212 and you wanted to win the top prize, you would need 0 to be drawn first, followed by 9, 2, 6, 2, 1 and 2 in that exact order.

The prize amounts, and the numbers required to win them, are as follows:

As you can see, there's more to the UK National Lottery than the main Lotto draw, and the secondary games described here should be enough to keep most enthusiasts busy throughout the week. However, if you're the kind of person who finds themselves getting a hankering for some lottery action between draws, there are still a couple of additional alternatives available to you – see our article on Scratchcards & Instant Win games for more details.

Article Last Updated: 02/08/2007