The latest National Lottery statistics from the Gambling Commission show sales of £7,934.95m in the 2025-26 financial year, slightly up on the year before. For the first time in a full financial year, more than half of sales came from online play. This 2026 guide brings together Commission, Allwyn UK and NLDF figures on sales, games, players and good causes.
National Lottery statistics: sales in 2025 and 2025-26
Two sets of figures are published, and they cover different periods. The Gambling Commission reports financial years from April to March, while Allwyn UK, the operator since February 2024, reports calendar years.
On the Commission’s measure, sales were £7,934.95m in 2025-26, up 0.89% from £7,864.94m in 2024-25. Allwyn UK put National Lottery sales 2025 at £8.1bn for the calendar year, up 3.5% on 2024.
| Financial year | Total sales | Online (remote) sales | Online share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | £7,615.7m | £1,595.3m | 20.9% |
| 2019-20 | £7,904.2m | £2,455.6m | 31.1% |
| 2020-21 | £8,386.4m | £3,517.0m | 41.9% |
| 2023-24 | £7,804.5m | £3,560.1m | 45.6% |
| 2024-25 | £7,864.9m | £3,845.5m | 48.9% |
| 2025-26 | £7,935.0m | £4,040.0m | 50.9% |
Sales are still below the record of £8,386.4m set in 2020-21, during the COVID-19 lockdowns. How the lottery fits into the wider British gambling market is covered in our UK gambling industry statistics guide.
Digital overtakes retail
The biggest change is where people buy tickets. Online sales rose 5.1% to £4,040.0m in 2025-26, while retail sales fell 3.1% to £3,894.9m, on our calculation from Commission data.
In 2009-10 online sales were just £694.6m, or 12.7% of the total. Allwyn UK said digital sales reached £4.1bn in calendar 2025, up 9.8%, and made up 51% of sales, the first time digital passed half in the lottery’s 31-year history.
A record 12.1m people played on digital platforms in 2025, 1m more than in 2024. These figures cover the official National Lottery website and app only; lottery-style games on non-UK casino sites are not part of the National Lottery and contribute nothing to its good causes.
Shops remain important. Allwyn UK has 43,500 retail partners, has replaced more than 41,000 terminals and says 94% of UK adults live or work within a mile of a National Lottery terminal.
The biggest games: EuroMillions, Lotto and Instant Win Games
EuroMillions had its best year in 2025, with EuroMillions UK sales of £2.1bn according to Allwyn UK. A single roll series in June 2025 raised a record £190m for good causes.
Instant Win Games, the online scratch-style games, reached record sales of £1.2bn in 2025, up 10%. The NLDF accounts note that EuroMillions returns the most to good causes per pound because it has the lowest prize payout, and that Instant Win Games grew as players moved from retail to digital.
Lotto and scratchcards went the other way, with both falling in 2024-25 according to the NLDF. The operator linked this to lower average player spend and to the move away from shops, since scratchcards are sold only in retail.
Key point: growth has come from EuroMillions and online Instant Win Games, while Lotto and scratchcards have declined.
EuroMillions is a shared draw run with other European lotteries, but European online casinos are a separate sector that the Commission’s lottery figures do not cover. Instant Win Games are also not caught by the online slots stake limits, which attach only to remote casino licences.
Where each pound of sales goes
The Commission splits every year’s sales into five parts. In 2025-26, prizes took £4,469.75m (56.3%), good causes £1,688.66m (21.3%) and Lottery Duty £952.19m (12.0%).
Retailers’ commission was £219.17m and costs and operator profit £605.18m. Because digital sales carry no retailer commission, the move online leaves more of each pound for good causes, the NLDF accounts note.
Lottery Duty is charged at 12% of sales. Allwyn UK reported £967m of duty for calendar 2025, while HMRC receipts for 2025-26 were £980.1m, a difference caused by the different periods, as our UK gambling tax guide explains.
Good causes funding and the NLDF
Money for good causes flows into the National Lottery Distribution Fund (NLDF), managed by DCMS. Under the fourth licence, the operator pays an annual fixed contribution plus a share of its surplus, and unclaimed prizes are added after 180 days.
The NLDF received £1.8 billion in 2024-25, up from £1.7 billion in 2023-24, and distributing bodies drew down £1.8 billion for grants and expenses. The balance held for them was £1.9 billion at 31 March 2025, against grant liabilities of £2.5 billion.
By the end of 2024-25 the National Lottery had raised £49.0 billion for good causes since 1994, plus £2.5 billion of investment income. Allwyn UK gives a higher running total of more than £53 billion, which includes later sales, and says the lottery has paid out more than £103 billion in prizes and created over 8,000 millionaires.
Good causes funding is split between arts, sport, heritage and community causes in proportions set by the National Lottery etc. Act 1993. Allwyn UK aims to raise this from £30m a week when it took over to £60m a week by 2034, the end of its licence.
Who plays the National Lottery
The Gambling Survey for Great Britain gives the best picture of players. In 2025, 31.0% of adults had bought tickets for National Lottery draws in the past four weeks, 25.6% online and 15.5% in person.
Play rises with age: 11.1% of 18 to 24 year olds bought draw tickets in the past four weeks, against 40.9% of 55 to 64 year olds. National Lottery scratchcards were bought by 11.0% of adults and online Instant Win Games played by 6.2%.
Players must be 18 or over. Even so, the Commission’s 2025 youth survey found that 9% of 11 to 17 year olds had played lottery-style games, usually with tickets bought by someone else, as our article on young people and gambling sets out.
Allwyn’s first full year
Allwyn results for 2025 cover its first full year running the lottery. The company says it has invested more than £450m and moved 18 million player records and over three billion transactions to more than 30 new systems.
Allwyn UK says it has satisfied the Gambling Commission that the requirements for full implementation of its new systems have been met. Good causes received at least £1.7bn in 2025, or £33m a week, according to the operator.
All of these figures come from licensed operators reporting to the Commission. They say nothing about lottery-style or casino games at crypto casinos, which sit outside GB regulation.
FAQ: National Lottery figures
Quick answers based on Commission, Allwyn UK and NLDF data.
How much does the National Lottery make a year?
Sales were £7,934.95m in 2025-26 on the Gambling Commission’s measure, and £8.1bn in calendar 2025 according to Allwyn UK.
How much of a ticket goes to good causes?
About 21.3% of sales in 2025-26, or £1,688.66m, on our calculation from Commission data.
Do more people play online or in shops?
Online sales overtook retail: they were 50.9% of sales in 2025-26 and 51% of sales in calendar 2025.
Which National Lottery game sells the most?
Allwyn UK reported record EuroMillions sales of £2.1bn in 2025 and £1.2bn for Instant Win Games. It does not publish a figure for Lotto in its 2025 results release.
Commission figures are for financial years (April to March); 2025-26 is provisional. Allwyn UK figures are for calendar 2025, and NLDF figures for 2024-25, so totals differ. Shares and growth rates are our calculations.
- Gambling Commission, Industry statistics, April 2025 to March 2026 (xlsx), table 11.
- Allwyn UK, 2025 results release, 23 March 2026.
- DCMS, National Lottery Distribution Fund annual report and accounts 2024-25.
- Gambling Commission, Gambling Survey for Great Britain, annual report 2025, table B.9.
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