Lottery Frauds And How To Avoid Them

“Our Dear Winner, You have won the sum of £710,000 (SEVEN HUNDRED AND TEN THOUSAND,POUNDS STERLING ) from British Lotto on our 2008 new year charity bonanza. The winning ticket was selected from a Data Base of Internet Email Users, from which your Address came out as the winning coupon."

"We hereby urge you to claim the winning amount quickly as this is a monthly lottery. Failure to claim your win will result into the reversion of the fund to our following month.”

This is just one example of a recent lottery scam email: a curse which seems to be all too common. Over 70 000 victims are known but there may be many more who are reluctant to be identified. The authors latch on to the latent greed in all of us to persuade their victims to part with their personal details and then later substantial amounts of money as an ‘administration fee’ or perhaps costs of mailing. One gentleman admitted to parting with £10 000 and an elderly couple were on the verge of giving their £20 000 savings to a fraudster but were fortunately dissuaded by a bank official and a police officer.

A particular scam was investigated by the British Office of Fair Trading who uncovered fifteen call centres in Canada which had already received over £1.6 million from victims in Britain. The increase in modern mass communications means hoax lottery demands can come from almost any country but for some reason Canada and Nigeria are the most commonly encountered.
Often fraudulent corespondence of this type comes from people whose first language is not English and this usually shows in grammatical errors or a bad choice of words. There are some examples in the letter quoted at the beginning of this article. Should you discover similar mistakes in correspondence or telephone calls be very cautious.

Other points to look out for are:

1. If you do win the UK lottery draw, you are expected to lodge your claim by taking your ticket to a retailer. If you are a member of a syndicate the organizer will advise you. No lottery organization will ever contact winners.

2. You never need to provide identification. Holding the winning ticket is identification enough.

3. There will never be any advance fee to pay before you receive your winnings.

4. In any case you can not win a lottery without buying a ticket or joining a syndicate. You will have either paid money for the ticket or a subscription to the syndicate. Whatever else you will certainly know in advance that you are in the lottery.

5. If you have any doubt you can check with the British National Lottery organizers direct by visiting their website. Never use the details provided on any correspondence you may receive.

There are a few good websites which also offer advice on how to act if you receive bogus correspondence or a telephone call, one of which belongs to the Metropolitan Police in London, and you can even report fraudsters. The best action to take however is to delete the email, destroy the letter or put the telephone down. Do not take it any further.

If you would like to find out more about the lottery, how to play or even how to earn money, please visit UK lottery draw.

Discover How The Lottery Funds Britain’s Heritage

The English Electric Canberra was built in Belfast. A PR9 variant is being restored by The Ulster Aviation Society to go alongside their existing eleven aircraft in their hangar at Long Kesh. Eventually the Canberra is intended to be the focus of illustrated talks, guided tours and an educational DVD to inform people about this piece of Northern Irish history.

With such projects, financing is always a challenge, which is why the Aviation Society was delighted to receive a £50 000 grant from the Heritage Lottery fund.

The Heritage Lottery Fund was set up in 1994 and is charged with distributing the income from the UK lottery fund, particularly with regard to historical and cultural projects. Set up at the same time as the British National Lottery, the Fund has supported 33 900 projects across the country with a total of £4.4 billion.

Between the Sperrin Mountains and Londonderry in Northern Ireland lies the one hundred-kilometre area of the Faughan Valley. This is an area of ancient woodland set in a picturesque river valley. £1.2 million is to be allocated to the area by the Heritage Lottery Fund for use by a partnership of The Woodland Trust, The Rural Area Partnership In Derry (RAPID) and Derry City Council in improving access for the local population and restoring woodland habitats. Schemes being planned include walking festivals, rural crafts training, Heritage Weeks and woodland visits.

Brain Poots of the Woodland Trust says, “We are absolutely delighted to receive the backing of the Heritage Lottery Fund. With our collective efforts, we can make a positive and lasting contribution to the beautiful Faughan Valley; it’s good news for the landscape, for wildlife and for people.”

Many great causes are supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund using money from the British National Lottery. It is great news therefore that as a result of an increase in the income received by the UK lottery draw, the Heritage Lottery Funds budget has been increased by £25 million annually. This means the Fund’s budget is now £205 million per year.

It is clear the money from the UK lottery draw has been used to great effect by the Heritage Lottery Fund and so the increase in money available will help more libraries, museums, conservation projects and historical buildings in the years to come. With every weeks lottery draw the whole country wins.

If you want to find out more about the lottery and the smarter way to play, please visit UK lottery draw now.

Discover The Chances Of Winning The Lottery

A winner of the UK lottery draw recently was Kevin Halstead who, despite winning £2.3 million, has decided to keep his job driving a bus for seventeen years. “I don’t want to pack my job in. I asked my boss for time off, a month maybe two, but I don’t want to cut myself off from my friends and I really enjoy my job,” he said. Mr Halstead will however buy his daughter a pony and is looking to move home back into the village of his birth.

Players of the British National Lottery must imagine what it would be like to win the top prize but what are the chances of winning in the same way as Mr Halstead?

Actually the odds are roughly the same as becoming an astronaut. Winning the jackpot has been calculated as 1 in 13 983 816 while being struck by lightning stands at 1 in 2.32 million. The mathematician Bill Hartson has worked out that a person could purchase £100 000 worth of tickets every time the jackpot rolls over and reduce the odds of winning to 1 in 14.

Everyone concentrates on the top prize but of course there are several other chances to win money available. On average one million players will win a prize of some description every week. Jackpot winners have to match all six numbers selected from 1 to 49 but prizes are also won with between five and three balls matched. The money available in these lower prizes ranges from £100 000 to £10 and the probability of winning drops from 1 in 2.3 million to 1 in 56.7.

A more efficient way of playing the UK lottery draw would be to join a group and play as a syndicate. Any money won by a member would be distributed among the group. This improves the chances of a member winning money considerably. One in four of the jackpots won tend to be collected by syndicates.

The Internet publicises several ways to improve the odds in the lottery but one of the most interesting is the Elottery system. The initial advantages are mathematical: for five pounds a week each member enters forty-four times into both the weekly draws (on Wednesday and Saturday) as a member of a syndicate of forty-nine players. Members actually only select five numbers each and the sixth number is selected in turn from each of the remaining forty-four. The probability of receiving a prize thus reduces to 1 in 13, which represents a 702% improvement.

There is no doubt the UK lottery draw is always going to be just that: a lottery. Schemes do exist to improve a player’s chances in the draw and syndicates do seem to be a smarter way to play the British National lottery.

Should you wish to find out more about playing the lottery or even earning an income from it, please visit UK lottery draw.

Understand About Winning The Lottery

On 14 August 2010, Wilton House near Salisbury will be host to over one hundred sleek supercars. These examples of automotive engineering will be there at the invitation of the Earl of Pembroke and the organiser, Jay Broom. This is the second Supercar Day and is in aid of a local children’s charity.

Most of the members of the public who will come to see the exotic cars on the lawns will wistfully think about winning the lottery and buying similar vehicles for themselves. But do lottery winners really buy such vehicles?

Your experiences prior to a lottery win tend to colour your decisions after. Take Anthony Castro for example. He won $250 000 in the Idaho state lottery. Originally he lived in New York where he was shot in the head when 19 and left for Boise, Idaho, after the September 11 attacks. Initially he lived in a homeless shelter before finding a job, getting married, having children and then getting divorced. He observed, “After so much turmoil in my life, and the loss of my mother a year ago, this is truly a blessing for me. My dreams, everyone’s dreams, are coming true.” His decisions on how to spend the money are, perhaps not surprisingly, sensible: he has set up a trust fund for his daughter, donated money to his church and invested the rest.

Jennifer Southall of Newport, Gwent however decided to enjoy the experience. Winning £8 million on the British National Lottery, Ms Southall gave up her job as a cinema supervisor, is taking driving lessons before buying a “pretty red car,” will buy a holiday home abroad, is booking holidays abroad with her family and wants to buy a big house with a swimming pool to replace her council-owned home.

Initially the impact on Ms Southall was small. “When I went to have my ticket checked, Camelot gave me a bottle of champagne to help me celebrate, but I just went home and ordered a pizza. I still haven’t opened the champagne – I have never tasted real champagne in my life” she observed. She did go out on a shopping trip with her mother next day though and spent £1500.

The record European lottery winners, Nigel Page and Justine Laycock, were more deliberate with their £56 million winnings. Having bought a four million pound house in the country, they donated their four-bedroom house to Denise Kelso who had kept it clean for them over several years. Denise still cleans their new mansion too.

After fifteen years of the UK lottery draw, advice is readily available to new jackpot winners so they tend to be conservative with their spending choices. But they must have at least one extravagance they want to satisfy. One of the good things from playing the British National Lottery is it gives you the chance to think what you might do with the winnings. Should you be lucky enough to be at Wilton House on 14 August you might allow yourself a little dream. They do come true sometimes.

If you would like to know more about profiting from the lottery, please visit UK lottery draw.

How To Survive Winning The Lottery

On 12 February 2010 the top prize in the European lottery was £56 million and was paid out to Nigel Page and Justine Laycock of Gloucestershire. This represented the biggest ever lottery win in Britain. Skydiver Nigel told reporters “I’ve jumped out of a plane at 12000 feet but that’s nothing compared to how I’m feeling now!”

Winning the jackpot in the British National Lottery would seem to solve all problems. But is this really the case?

The top winner of the UK lottery draw one week in 1995 was Mark Gardiner. He took home £11 million and accepted the publicity that came with it. He then spent much of the money and loaned a large amount out. Subsequently he squabbled with family members and friends over money and lost touch with several of them. He summed his experience up by saying, “The trouble isn’t the money, it’s what the money brings along with it. It enabled me to get rid of a box of problems – but it just got replaced by a posher box of even bigger problems.”

The problem seems to be the overnight transition from struggling for money to wealth. Camelot, the organisers of the UK lottery draw, have prepared a support system for new winners. The person with the enviable job as winners’ advisor, Dot Renshaw, recently said that winners are now told to go off on holiday in order to come to terms with their good fortune. Rapid decisions are definitely discouraged. A panel of advisors such as lawyers and financial experts are recommended to the winners and a bank account suggested. Dealing with large sums of money is beyond many people so professional help is a great advantage.

Camelot also have staff available to answer any begging letters on behalf of winners. They also organise winners’ events where those in similar positions can discuss their experiences. Also previous winners are encouraged to talk to new winners.

As Mark Gardiner found, publicity is one of the biggest challenges experienced by UK lottery draw winners. For this reason they can now elect for anonymity and the Press Complaints Commission has drawn up rules to ensure this can take place.

Past experiences now mean British National Lottery winners are now better informed than before. This shows in polls run by the Ipsos Mori research company. It may have something to do with the characters of the people involved but 55% of lottery winners believe they are happier now than before they won the jackpot. Also it was found that nine out of ten married winners were still with their partner and nine our of ten also kept their friends.

The type of cars purchased by new winners is also interesting. Another poll showed that the top four preferred makes were Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Mini and Vauxhall. Range Rover and Porsche only came at sixth and eighth.

Since its inception sixteen years ago the UK lottery draw has created over 2300 millionaires. Now the winners get more help than before and this has made the experience a much happier one. Despite his disappointments even Mark Gardiner is happier now. He has fallen back in love with his first wife and they are to shortly remarry.

If you want to know more about making more of the lottery, please visit UK lottery draw.

Financing The Olympics from The British National Lottery

For twenty years, a British woman swimmer had not won a gold medal in the Olympics and then at Beijing in 2008, Rebecca Adlington took away two, breaking a record time, which had also stood for twenty years, in the eight hundred metres as she did so.

Rebecca believes the support she received from the UK lottery draw was key to her success. The money she and other athletes received enabled them access to first class training, coaching and medical support. Of course they are all looking to the next Games, those at London in 2012, and the National Lottery has confirmed its continued support.

For the 2008 Beijing Olympics the British National Lottery allocated £265 million in the World Class Pathway scheme. This was the initiative that supported the athletes and was vindicated by the haul of over 140 medals brought home by the sportsmen and women involved. With its continuing funding, the National Lottery authorities are expecting an even better haul from the London 2012 Games.

The Government has appointed a body, the Olympic Lottery Distributor, to oversee the distribution of funds. The Distributor will have a total income of £1.83 billion from the UK lottery draw to support the London Olympics and Paralympics.

This money comes directly from the stake money paid by lottery players. Twenty-eight percent of the money is allocated to good causes and five percent goes direct to the Olympic fund.

The facilities required for the London 2012 Games will be partly financed by £2.2 billion from British National Lottery funds. Not only will this have the short-term benefit of the Olympics themselves but will also represent a long-term legacy for the people of London and the UK as a whole. The funds invested in the infrastructure will not be lost however. According to the Government, once the Olympics and Paralympics are over, much of the land will be sold and any profits paid back into the lottery fund for use on other projects.

17000 athletes and officials will be housed in the Olympic village during the competitions and 6000 during the Paralympics. Once the Games are over the area will then be used to add to the regeneration of the London borough of Stratford and will provide 4000 new homes, leisure facilities and office buildings. A new shopping centre will also be constructed.

The British National Lottery is, also sponsoring other projects related to the Olympics, yet probably not so well known. For example, Unlimited is a project providing opportunities in arts and sports to deaf and disabled residents. The lottery fund has donated £3 million to support this as part of the 2012 London Cultural Olympiad.

Previous Olympics have proved to be expensive affairs so the organisers of the 2012 London Olympics must be pleased to have the help of UK lottery draw funding. In any case, there is no doubt Rebecca Adlington is grateful. She thanked the players of the British National Lottery in a recent interview.

To find out more about the operation of the lotteries, go to UK lottery draw

How Good Causes Benefit From The UK Lottery Draw

The entries will close for the UK National Lottery Awards very soon. The awards recognise the initiatives financed from the lottery funds and highlight that feature of the UK lottery draw that is so easily overlooked. Each week after the lottery draw, players either celebrate their success or complain about their failure. Yet every week there are other winners: the funds from the draw benefit various charities and good causes.

Television personality Sally Lindsey and a group of ladies from the Women’s Royal Voluntary service promoted the awards at the London Transport Museum. The choice of venue was deliberate, as both the WRVS and the museum have received funds from the British national lottery draw.

In the Welsh county of Pembrokeshire, St Davids cathedral had originally been constructed in 1181 on the site of an existing building. In its history, the church has experienced an earthquake, attacks from marauding soldiers and continual erosion from the elements. It has been a long struggle for survival. Recently, however, the situation has been helped a little following a grant from the National Lottery, which enabled the rebuilding of the north porch and the south cloister.

An ITV network television programme, The Peoples Millions, also distributes lottery funds. For example, Rowan Gate Primary School in Northamptonshire successfully applied to the programme for £50 000 to improve the school’s physiotherapy pool and open access to the pool for disabled children.

A more extensive initiative that has benefited from the UK lottery draw fund is a series of projects created to recognise the role servicemen played in the Second World War. One part of this, The Heroes Return, gave £17 million to enable veterans of the war to return to the sites of their campaigns. 58 veterans of the Royal Navy used this to return to Penang and Singapore.


Another part of the same scheme was the Their Past Your Future project which gave school children the chance to study the war and to actually meet the veterans. The Home Front Recall initiative also donated grants ranging from £500 to £20 000 to schemes commemorating the people and events of the Second World War.

The lottery was launched in 1994 and, since that time, around £25 million a week has been raised for charities. This means that a total of £24 billion has been raised to date.

It is clear, therefore, that in it’s 15 year life, the UK lottery draw has made a great impact on a wide section of British society. In particular, 28 per cent of the grants have been received by the most deprived areas of British society with tremendous results.

The lottery can too easily be seen purely in terms of winning and losing of money and yet there is no doubt it has effects that are far more positive.


To find out more about the lotteries, please visit UK lottery draw.