How to Play UK Health Lottery, info, Rules and Guides

The Health Lottery is not part of the national lottery. It is an independent game which operates by coordinating 12 individual society lotteries. Each one is licensed by the Gambling Commission and represents a different region of the UK.

Tickets cost just £1 and drawings are held five times a week - Tuesday to Saturday. The funds raised by players are rotated across each of the 12 areas involved and are used to support public health causes which benefit the local community. Select a topic below to learn more about this innovative game.

How to Play UK Health Lottery

When you play the Health Lottery, you need to select five numbers from 1 to 50. Draws take place every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, so there are five chances to play and win each week.

Tickets cost £1 each and are available online or from any of the 32,000+ authorised retailers across the UK:

Pick your five numbers from 1-50

If you need help choosing then you can ask for a Quick Pick ticket, or use the random number generator to create a line.

Step 2

Decide how many draws to play

You can just enter the next scheduled draw, or play in advance for up to eight weeks.

Step 3

Purchase your entries before sales close

Step 4

Check to see if you're a winner

The latest winning numbers will be made available on the Health Lottery Results page.

Special £100,000 Draws

On 4th January 2020 the Health Lottery introduced a second draw on Wednesdays and Saturdays, in which players who buy a ticket for the draws on those days could win £100,000. The £100,000 draw takes place after the main Health Lottery draw; in it, five more numbers between 1 and 50 are randomly selected and if you match all five you win £100,000. There are no other prizes available in this second draw and the prize money does not roll over if it is not won.

There is no additional purchase necessary to enter the £100,000 draws; all you need to do is purchase a line of Health Lottery numbers for any Wednesday or Saturday draw. The numbers you pick for the main draw will then be used for the second one.

Health Lottery Playcards

You can also use a Health Lottery Playcard to take part more quickly and easily at a shop. These are available from participating retailers and can either be activated at the store or online. If you want to pick your own numbers, you can use a blue Playcard to store up to ten different lines. Just pass it to the retailer and they will swipe it to generate a ticket. A red Playcard is also available if you are happy to play random numbers. The retailer will scan it to produce a Quick Pick ticket for the next draw(s).

As well as helping you to play quickly, Playcards provide plenty of additional benefits. If you register a blue card online, you will automatically join the Health Lottery reward scheme to gain access to exclusive offers. These may include special £1 bonuses for every £10 you spend, or other exciting promotions. You can change the numbers stored on your card at any time.

Bonus Ball 

Although Health Lottery players only pick five numbers for their ticket, there are actually six winning numbers in each draw. This extra number is the Bonus Ball and it exists to boost the winnings of players who have matched two, three or four main numbers.

The Bonus Ball is drawn from the same pool as the five main numbers, so the same number cannot appear twice in a winning line.

You do not need to match this ball to win the jackpot, only the five main numbers contribute towards the top prize tier.

Health Lottery Raffle Results

The raffle took place on the first day of every month. Every Health Lottery ticket purchased in the month leading up to a raffle included a unique code, and each one of these codes was entered into the next raffle for the chance to win £250,000. You can see the results from the most recent draws before the game stopped in the table below.

All Mega Raffle codes started with either EH, IM, IW, PH, PO, PZ, or SD. The code you got depended on whether you bought your ticket online or in a store, and on which till or terminal the store used to produce the ticket. All raffle codes had an equal chance of winning. If you won a Mega Raffle prize, you had to claim it within 180 days of the draw taking place.

QuickWin

QuickWin launched in November 2017 and gives Health Lottery players the opportunity to take part in draws every three minutes. Currently, the game is only available to enter online via a Health Lottery account.

As the draws are so frequent, the winning numbers are selected using a Random Number Generator (RGN) rather than a physical ball machine. However, each draw still takes place live, numbers are not pre-selected for draws taking place later in the day.

Step 1 

Choose your five numbers from 1-50

Select the QuickPick option to have a random line generated for you, or pick your own lucky numbers.

Step 2

Pay for your entry

£1 will automatically be deducted from your account balance to cover the cost of your ticket, 20.3p of this goes to Good Causes.

Step 3

Check the results

As draws take place every three minutes, you'll never have long to wait. The winning numbers will appear on your screen.

UK Health Lottery History

The Health Lottery has been giving away great prizes, and raising money for health-related causes since September 2011. It is now drawn five times a week. Get all the information about game changes, jackpot records and promotional offers that have occurred during the game's history.

Health Lottery Funding and Grants

Out of every £1 spent on tickets, 20p is distributed to health-related good causes around the UK. The lottery raises money for initiatives concerned with helping people lead healthier, longer lives and which aren't already covered by the NHS. Local people choose the causes that benefit from the money alongside Health Lottery's partner charity, the People's Health Trust.

The Health Lottery has raised over £100 million for good causes. One of the many charities to benefit has been the Newham Chinese Association, which received a £50,000 grant to keep running for 2018 and 2019. The funding has helped older Chinese people living in the area to battle isolation and honour Chinese culture, including a series of activities to mark the Chinese New Year.

Community Church Ramsgate in Kent received funding of £29,683 from the People’s Health Trust in the summer of 2018, allowing people to come forward and seek support on a vast range of issues, including personal debt management, housing and benefits advice, as well as family support.