Free Lotto Lucky Dip – How to Claim Your Prize

A Lucky Dip is an entry into a National Lottery draw that consists of randomly selected numbers, rather than numbers that you pick manually. All National Lottery games give you the option to play a Lucky Dip instead of your own numbers.

If you match two numbers in Lotto you win a free Lucky Dip for the next draw. How you get hold of your free ticket differs depending on whether you bought your winning entry in-store or online. The Lotto Results pages show how many Lucky Dip winners there were in each draw.

Claiming free Lucky Dips online

If you play Lotto online and match two numbers, you will receive an email notifying you that you have won a prize. The free Lucky Dip will then be applied to your account on the day of the next draw. For any future Lucky Dips you win you will be able to choose whether to enter them into the next Wednesday draw or the next Saturday draw.

The free Lucky Dip will be visible in your account on the day of the draw but not before. Take the following steps to view your free Lucky Dip numbers online:

• Sign in to your account on the National Lottery website or app
• Go to your account by selecting the box that shows your balance and then selecting ‘My account’, or by tapping the profile icon at the top of the app
• Select ‘My games’
• Select a ticket number to view the details of that ticket

If you follow these steps after the draw you will see a message next to the ticket informing you whether you have won. Alternatively, you can enter your numbers into the Lotto Ticket Checker to see whether you have won a prize.

Claiming free Lucky Dips at a retailer

If you play Lotto in-store, you can claim your free Lucky Dip from any National Lottery retailer. Just hand your winning ticket to the cashier and they will give you the choice of entering either the next Wednesday or the next Saturday Lotto draw.

You will then be given a new Lucky Dip ticket for the chosen draw. The winning ticket you used to claim the free Lucky Dip will not be returned to you, even if it’s a multi-draw ticket with draws left to play. You can find an explanation of what happens when you claim your free Lucky Dip with a multi-draw ticket below.

Claiming your free Lucky Dip with a multi-draw ticket

When you win a free Lucky Dip on a multi-draw ticket you can claim it at any time, even if you win in the first draw on the ticket.

Just take your ticket to any lottery retailer to claim, as you would if you had a ticket just for that draw. After the cashier validates your winning ticket they will give you the free Lucky Dip for the next Lotto draw but they will not return your original multi-draw ticket to you.

If there were draws still left to play on your multi-draw ticket the cashier will give you an Exchange Ticket, which acts as your new proof of entry for any future draws that were on the original multi-draw ticket. If you win further prizes in any of the draw dates on the Exchange Ticket, it is that which you must use to claim.

How to Play Using a Lucky Dip

If you play in-store you can get a Lucky Dip by asking the cashier. Just let them know the game, draw days, and the number of weeks you want to play and they will do the rest. Alternatively, you can fill out a playslip online or in-store:

• Mark one Lucky Dip box for every line of numbers you want to play
• Select which draw days you want your numbers to be entered on
• Mark the number of weeks you want to play for (if more than one week)
• Pay for your ticket

You will only get to see your Lucky Dip numbers after the ticket has been generated.

Is it possible to get the same Lucky Dip numbers more than once?

Lucky Dips are generated entirely at random so there is a chance that some of your numbers are repeated across multiple lines.

However, the chances of purchasing two Lotto Lucky Dips with exactly the same six numbers are the same as winning the jackpot, so while there is a small possibility that the system has generated two identical lines entirely at random, it is more likely that an error has occurred.

For that reason, if you receive multiple Lucky Dips with exactly the same numbers, you should contact the National Lottery Customer Care Team within two hours of buying the ticket or before the close of sales for that draw, whichever is sooner. They will investigate and may offer you a refund.

Is a Lucky Dip better than picking your own numbers?

The odds of winning the lottery are exactly the same whether you pick your own numbers or opt for a Lucky Dip, so in that respect it makes no difference at all to how much or how often you win. Roughly half of all jackpot winners have used Lucky Dips.

Lucky Dips, however, can help to ensure that when you do win you don’t have to share the prize money with other players.

That’s because the numbers in a Lucky Dip are picked completely randomly; the chances that someone else has picked the exact same numbers are slim. When you pick your own numbers, however, there’s a chance that you pick them according to a pattern, whether you mean to or not. If you’ve used a certain pattern, it’s possible that other players have done so too.

For example, the winning numbers in the Lotto draw on 23rd March 2016 were 7, 14, 21, 35, 41, and 42, five of which are multiples of seven. This proved to be a popular pattern with Lotto players and resulted in more than 4,000 players matching five numbers. Some of the winners were understandably displeased to learn that they had only won £15, which was less than the £25 that Match 3 winners received.

Picking a Lucky Dip will help to avoid any potential pitfalls like this and will reduce the likelihood that you’ll suffer a similar surprise when you do win.