<P> The Heritage Lottery Fund was set up by the government in 1994 to provide money for "projects involving the local, regional and national heritage". The funds come from the money raised by the National Lottery's' Good Causes' . Since 1994, the Heritage Lottery Fund has given grants totalling approximately £ 4 billion to more than 26,000 projects . </P> <P> In 2004, on the 10th anniversary of the National Lottery, the National Lottery Awards were instituted as an annual event to provide recognition of the work of Lottery funded projects around the UK . Certain projects are selected as the best in particular categories . The trophies were designed and produced by Gaudio Awards . </P> <P> The National Lottery is a jackpot system with the majority of winnings going to those few players who pick all six numbers . The average percentage return is the share of the ticket sales devoted to prize funds, about 45% (i.e., 45% of the money spent on tickets would be won in prizes). The spread of returns will be very wide and influenced by several factors that change week - by - week (e.g. the number of tickets sold, the "distinctiveness" and popularity of the winning numbers). Over an extremely long period (tens of millions of draws) the return on investment would approach the average, about 45% (a 55% loss). Over a shorter period there is a very small chance of a big win, but otherwise an average return of less than 45%; a numerical experiment using 10,000 random sets of numbers each week for 3 years found that, had the tickets been bought, the rate of return would have been less than 30% . </P> <P> In their book "Scenarios for Risk Management and Global Investment Strategies", academics Rachel ES Ziemba and William T Ziemba say with regard to 6 / 49 lotteries, "Random numbers have an expected loss of about 55% . However, six - tuples of unpopular numbers have an edge with expected returns exceeding their cost by about 65% . The expected value rises and approaches $2.25 per dollar wagered when there are carryovers (UK term: rollovers). Random numbers, such as those from lucky dip and quick pick, and popular numbers are worth more with carryovers but never have an advantage ." They conclude that, due to the time that would be required to achieve success, "except for millionaires and pooled syndicates, it is not possible to use the unpopular numbers in a scientific way to beat the lotto and have high confidence of becoming rich; these aspiring millionaires will also most likely be residing in a cemetery when their distant heirs reach the goal". </P>

Where does the money from lottery come from