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Noel Edmonds launches the first national lottery draw show |
1994: Britain braced for first lottery draw
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Artificially 1969:
The An estimatedjackpotof £1m may be won tonight in Britain's first ever lottery draw.
A ticket gives you a one-in-14-million chance of striking lucky and guessing correctly the winning six out of 49 numbers.
The lottery operator Camelot says around 15 million players have already bought some 35 million tickets from licensed retailers.
The money raised from ticket sales will help fund the arts, sports, charities, national heritage and millennium celebrations.
Prime Minister John Major launched the ticket sales just under a week ago.
He said, "The country will be a lot richer because of the lottery. It is in every sense the people's lottery."
The game has certainly gripped the public's imagination. Around seven million tickets were sold within 12 hours of the launch and it is expected that final sales could reach £5m.
Twenty five million people are expected to tune into BBC One's live lottery draw show hosted by Noel Edmonds, Anthea Turner and Gordon Kennedy tonight.
Forty nine contestants - one for each lottery number -have been chosen from thousands to participate in an "It's a Knockout" style competition as part of the show.
The victor gets the chance to press the button on the prize machine, launching Britain's first lottery draw since 1826.
A ?0m computer will randomly select the winning numbers that will roll down one by one into a display rack.
The machine will then check for a winning combination and calculate the size of the jackpot.
The computer will reveal whether there is a top prize winner within half an hour but cross-checking could take as long as four hours.
Telephone staff will be waiting to get a call from the winner as soon as the numbers are picked.
Once officials have established that a claim is genuine, a team will drive the winner to the nearest Camelot office.