Winning the lottery is a dream for many but one which typically stays in the realm of unreality, save for the one in 14 million players who holds a lucky winning ticket. For organisations within the National Lottery’s Five Good Causes sectors though, being on the receiving end of the National Lottery’s benevolence holds significantly better odds.

The Five Good Causes sectors are arts, charities, heritage, Millennium projects and sports. The National Lottery, which launched in 1994, also added a further three Good Causes to the list in 1998: health, education and environment. Altogether, the eight sectors have benefited from over £22billion since the initiative was established in the early nineties.

Such impressive figures come directly from the lottery players themselves, with 70 per cent of all adults playing the lottery regularly, raising in excess of £25million each week for Good Causes. With such significant profits, you might consider where Lottery cash is spent and who benefits from the multi-billion pound revenue generated every year by Camelot, the National Lottery operator.

In fact, the National Lottery in the UK returns as much as they receive from the public to public-interest Good Causes, with a higher proportion of Lottery revenue spent on society than any other Lottery-playing nation, worldwide.

In total, 317,000 grants, over half of which have been for under £5,000 each, have been awarded to Good Causes across the eight benefiting sectors since 1994. Good causes in receipt of Lottery funding include the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games, which will receive £2.2billion.

National Lottery Good Causes funding is actively distributed by numerous stakeholders and individual councils for initiatives across all eight sectors throughout the UK and Northern Ireland. These include Arts Council England, Heritage Lottery Fund, UK Film Council, Scottish Screen and UK Sport.

Once Lottery funding reaches the communities it aims to benefit, you could discover that Good Causes grants support anything from coaching masterclasses and group sessions, to press campaigns, to promoting sporting talent across the UK. Good causes grants also fund venues across the UK from financing refurbishments to providing grants to enable new artistic collections to be bought or commissioned.

Good Causes grants such as these go to support UK families in a big way, making sure that, especially for families looking to save money on foreign summer holidays this year, there’s plenty family fun to be had during school breaks nonetheless. As such, National Lottery Good Causes initiatives touch the lives of millions of Brits every year. Whether for small or large, no cause is out of reach as far as the National Lottery is concerned.

The UK national lottery is operated by the Camelot Group, a private company owned by five shareholders. In 1994, the company won the license to run the lottery and later in 2001, it was awarded a second seven-year license to operate the national lottery. The main game of the national lottery was named lotto in 2002.

Today, over 65% of the UK population is playing national lottery on a regular basis. Around 28% of the lottery revenue is used for good causes. It is estimated that the lottery has so far raised more than £17 billion pounds for various good causes across the country.

All the winning tickets need to be claimed within 180 days after the draw. The winning prize amount is paid as lump sum and is tax free. If the player does not claim the money within the above specific period, then the prize amount is given out through the good cause’s fund.

Lotto Extra, Lotto Hot Picks, Thunderball, EuroMillions, and Scratchcards are some of the games that operate under national lottery brands. To play national lottery, you need to fill a play slip, which contains a number of boxes called “boards.” Using pencil or blue/black ink put a bold mark on any six number boxes and hand over the ticket to the terminal. If you make any mistake, then put a mark on the void box and the terminal will ignore that particular board.

Young people – who are under the age of 18 – are prohibited from playing or purchasing national lottery. As a strategy to stop under-age playing, the Camelot Group has encouraged several proof-of-age-cards like Citizen Card and Validate. Moreover, the national lottery tickets are not available to non-UK residents.