Lotto Extra is a lottery game that is no longer played (it was replaced by the Dream Numbers game in July 2006), but it is well worth describing retrospectively because it shows how the current range of games has been developed and improved over time.

The Lotto Extra game was, as the name suggests, an extra game that took place straight after the main lottery draw every Wednesday and Saturday. However, it is important to note that Lotto Extra could not be played separately from the main lottery draw. Instead, main lottery players had to pay an extra £1 to participate in Lotto Extra as well.

Players were required to pick 6 numbers from 49 and they had to match all six numbers (from six drawn – there was no bonus ball for Lotto Extra) in order to win the jackpot. The odds of doing this were 1 in 13,983,816.

The Lotto Extra play slip was very similar to the Lotto play slip, and allowed players to enter their numbers for up to eight weeks by paying in advance.

As in the main lottery draw, if no player matched all six Lotto Extra numbers then the jackpot was rolled over to the next Lotto Extra draw. If the jackpot reached £50 million and still wasn’t won then £50 million was divided between players who matched five out of the six numbers. If there were no players matching five numbers then the prize was divided between those matching four out of six, then three our of six, and so on. Any amount over £50 million was rolled over to the next draw.

Lotto Extra was never as popular as the main lottery game, and this was probably due to the fact that there were no regular prizes for those matching anything less than all six numbers. Eventually the sales of Lotto Extra tickets dwindled to the point where Camelot decided to pull the plug and introduce players to Dream Number instead.