UK National Lottery unclaimed prizes

03/03/2011 10:56:07

Often on these lottery news pages, we bring you tales of lottery winnings that are waiting for their winners to step forward and it’s always worrying just how many big lottery prizes are added to the fund for good causes. Well now the UK National Lottery unclaimed prizes department has added up all the lottery wins that have gone to charity since the launch of the Lotto in 1994 and we think it’s going to come as a shock to lottery players.

Since the UK National Lottery launched in November 1994, a total of £1.1 billion, yes that’s billion, in lottery prizes have been given to charity in the UK. That’s every single lottery prize in the UK that hasn’t been claimed due to the winner not stepping forward, including a £9.4 million lottery winner from Doncaster, the biggest ever unclaimed lottery prize seen in the UK.

	UK National Lottery (UK)
	UK National Lottery (Outside UK)

Now unclaimed prizes seem to be a fact of life, but they are being reduced both in the UK and around the world. As the opportunities to buy UK National Lottery tickets online increase (how to play), the chances to lose your paper ticket decrease and that’s why we recommend buying lottery tickets online as the best way to ensure you’re not added to the long list of unclaimed lottery winners.

There’s plenty of news from the UK National Lottery this week, this being only part of it, but if you’d like to get your hands on a big Lotto jackpot then the next bit of news might interest you. Over the next few days over £60 million is going to be up for grabs in the UK between the Euromillions and UK National Lottery and as UK lottery draws are tax free, it’s about the most exciting lottery news of the week!