The UK National Lottery is one the most successful lotteries in the world. They return a higher proportion of their revenue to society than any other lottery. Funding obtained through the National Lottery has been used for approximately 290 000 projects in the United Kingdom. To date, an incredible £21 billion has been distributed to Good Causes in the UK.

The National Lottery is operated by Camelot, a national commission which has been appointed to ensure the integrity of the National Lottery. Their primary objective in to maximise returns for Good Causes, they also manage National Lottery infrastructure, design new games, provide marketing support for lottery products and services for players and winners. There are approximately 26 000 lottery ticket retailers in the UK, Camelot is responsible for management of this sales network.

From each pound spent by the public on lottery tickets, half a pence goes to Camelot, 50 pence goes to lucky lottery winners, 12 pence to taxes, 5 pence goes to the retailer from whom the ticket was purchased and 4.5 pence from each pound is used to cover admin costs. That leaves 28 pence from each pound spent on National Lottery tickets, which goes to Good Causes.

The entire National Lottery is divided into separate components, whilst Camelot is responsible for the marketing of the National Lottery and the collection of funds; they are not responsible for the distribution thereof. That task belongs to 14 independent lottery funder’s who support various causes in the arts, heritage, sport, community and voluntary groups as well as supporting projects concerned with health, education and the environment.

How does the National Lottery interact online with their various publics?

The National Lottery interacts separately with each of their interest groups. There are a number of websites catering to the diverse needs of the various audiences. Whilst the lotterygoodcauses.org.uk website is responsible for the promotion of the National Lottery and educating the public with regards to lottery funding another website namely, lotteryfunding.org.uk facilitates applications for grants and funding. National Lottery is solely for players and winners of the national lottery.

The sites purpose is to allow players to play the lottery online. They do not compete for keywords in their category and are not in a race for search engine ranking. They rank very highly due to fact that they are the official UK National Lottery website. Whilst other sites also rank well for certain keywords, they do not pose a threat and instead endorse and support playing of the UK National Lottery.

The site has a very crisp appearance. It is well touted in other media that proceeds from the National Lottery go towards Good Causes, so this is not heavily publicised here. This sites main aim is for providing entertainment and enjoyment for users wishing to play. The brand colours of the National Lottery namely blue and red have been used on a white background creating an air of excitement.

The use of file tab menu at the top of the page allows for easy navigation. Two sets of file tabs are used on each page. Whilst the first is repeated throughout the site, the second row changes per page. The first row is red, with a blue colour indicating the page you are visiting; the second row is blue which ties up with the tab you have selected. This creates a wonderful effect for the user, causing certain information to jump to the foreground and the rest to fall into the background simply through the intelligent use of colour.

The site functions well, allows for registration and online ticket purchase, and is designed to be quite interactive. Directions for use are provided continuously as one proceeds through the website. Frequently Asked Questions provide useful information including, getting started, managing a user account and much more. In addition, information with regards to security and responsible gaming has been included. Another interesting feature is the instant win games such as Scrabble, Money Motor, Snakes and Ladders and Hangman. These include video demonstrations as well trial games. All the above contributes towards a pleasant user experience.

The National Lottery website includes an Affiliate Program in support of Internet marketing. National Lottery loads rather quickly and in so doing does not risk losing potential players. They have a link popularity score of 10 000 with 412 incoming links. They receive a lot of traffic, mainly originating in the United Kingdom and have an Alexa traffic rank of 2539.