Fake UK National Lottery Notification Emails - Are You Being Scammed?

Scams Involving the British National Lottery

How to Recognize Them and What To Do If You Receive One

There are only two legal large* lotteries in Britain, the National Lottery and the Monday Lottery (an online lottery), and neither uses email to notify winners. See sample emails (links at left or further down this page) for examples of scam UK lottery emails.

All lotteries, including foreign lotteries operating in Great Britain, are unlawful in the UK (except those provided for by the 1976 Lotteries and Amusements Act; meaning the government run National Lottery). Note: in the UK, call the hotline at 020 7211 8111 to check or report lottery scams. Some of these lottery schemes say that the Gaming Board for Great Britain has approved them, but this is not true. The Gaming Board has a list of these companies and lotteries on its website, and warns people not to take part in them.

If you have not purchased a ticket for the UK National Lottery, you cannot have won a prize, and you should treat the email with absolute caution.

The following points are some things to look for in order to identify a fraudulent UK National Lottery winning notification email:

The UK National Lottery does NOT tell players how much they've won in an email; and
The UK National Lottery does NOT ask for any Player information like name, address or bank details on an email.
If the email says 'Winning Notification' or 'Lottery Sweep Stake' in the text, the email you've received is definitely not from UK National Lottery;

When the real UK National Lottery sends an email to your for OTHER reasons (never a winning notification) they use only the following email addresses:

admin@nationallottery.co.uk
player@nationallottery.co.uk
play@nationallottery.co.uk
help@nationallottery.co.uk
play@play.nationallottery.co.uk

They use only these addresses to send communication such as purchase confirmations and rollover alerts. Again, the real UK National Lottery would NEVER use a Yahoo, Hotmail, AIM, AOL or other email address to either send or receive email!

* Very small charity-based lotteries are legal with a number of restrictions, for legitimate charities. See the legal guidance for small lotteries and the UK government paper Lotteries and the Law. None of these would send you an email!

THE PITCH

They offer you something for nothing ' such as:

you've won a prize in a draw or a lottery (even though you haven't entered one)
an exclusive entry to a scheme that's a surefire way to make money
a way to earn easy money by helping them get untold millions out of their country
the chance to join an investment scheme that will make you huge amounts of money; and so on.

There are hundreds of examples but we can all protect ourselves by being skeptical. Is it likely that someone you don't know, who has contacted you out of the blue, will give you something for nothing?

THE STING

They'll ask you to:

send money up front − an administration fee or tax, the list is endless but its always a ruse to get you to give them money
give them your bank details or other personal details
ring a premium rate number (all UK premium rate numbers start with 090)
buy something to get your prize.

They will lie to you and give you what seem to be good reasons why you should do what they say. They will answer all your objections.

Don't send any money or give any personal details to anyone until you've checked them out and talked to a professional or family and friends.
If they ask you to do any of these things they're trying to cover their tracks and get your money and it's likely to be a scam.