The UK National Lottery Midweek Draw

On Wednesday 23rd October 1996, Camelot confirmed that they had been given permission by Oflot (the lottery regulator) to hold a second UK National Lottery draw each Wednesday. The first such draw was on Wednesday 5th February 1997 and the following information is reproduced without permission from the "Midweek Draw" page in Camelot's Fact File booklet released during November 1996 and my comments are enclosed in square brackets.

How It Will Work

The format and prize structure is exactly the same as the Saturday game - players choose 6 numbers from 49 and can also play by Lucky Dip. Draws take place every Wednesday evening in addition to Saturday, are broadcast on BBC 1 TV and there's usually a different regular host for the Wednesday show compared to the Saturday show. A new playslip has been introduced to allow players to pick which draw(s) they wish to enter - Saturday only, Wednesday only or both draws.

What It Takes To Launch The Midweek Draw

Developing sophisticated lottery computer software to handle an additional 14 million plays every week.
Printing 250 million new playslips.
Over 100,000 hours of specialist training for around 24,000 on-line retail outlets.
An estimated 25,000 additional enquiries to The National Lottery Line [0645 100 000] each week.
An estimated 32,000 enquiries to the Retailer Hotline during launch week.
5 million player information leaflets produced and distributed to retail outlets.
Dispatching 460,000 parcels to retailers.
Massive TV and radio ad campaign.
3,000 posters and 24,000 items of point of sale material.

International Comparisons

Over 100 lotteries around the world run a second weekly draw.
The vast majority of lotteries around the world have opted for the second draw to be on a Wednesday and maintain the same format as the main draw.
Lotto 4/5 of Stichting De Nationale Sporttolalisator (sic ?) in the Netherlands has five draws a month on Saturdays and one on Wednesday if there are only four Saturdays in a month.
Singapore's Totto lottery has two draws a week which are held on Monday and Thursday.

Notes [from me]:

It's difficult to precise about this, but Camelot have estimated that a typical jackpot pool will be £4m for the midweek draw and about £8m for the Saturday draw.
If a jackpot is unwon, it is rolled over to the next draw. Hence, an unwon jackpot for a Saturday draw would be rolled over to following Wednesday's draw and ditto for an unwon Wednesday jackpot, which would be rolled over to the following Saturday's draw.
The Labour Party wanted the midweek draw to use the numbers 51 to 99 instead of Saturday's 1 to 49 numbers. This would prevent people from being encouraged to play the Wednesday draw to cover their "lucky numbers" in both draws, but does lead to some problems (a different playslip, a change in central computer software and 10 new sets of balls spring to mind). Also, what's to stop someone adding 50 to their numbers for the midweek draw, although I doubt many people would think of doing that...
Tickets for the midweek draw went on sale on Thursday 30th January 1997 and the same day also saw the release of a new How To Play leaflet to cover this new midweek draw.
The first midweek draw (Lottery #117) on Wednesday 5th February 1997 was a Super Draw with a guaranteed £10m jackpot pool, although it was rounded down by £1 because there were 3 winners. It was launched with a "Winsday" firework display over the River Thames, started by Barbara Windsor and Tim Holley (Camelot's chief executive). The Sun newspaper gave away all 5 million of its copies for free on the launch day, thanks to an 8-page lottery supplement paid for by Camelot.