Huge change to National Lottery rules that will see winners get money quicker

A HUGE change to National Lottery rules could see winners get money quicker.

Players will now have prizes between £500 and £50,000 paid directly into their bank accounts instead of by cheque.

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Any payments will be made within 24 hours of winners entering their bank account details online.

Jenny Blogg, operations director for Allwyn, which runs the National Lottery, said: "We’re delighted to introduce this completely new payment solution, which will see, for the first time, people who play The National Lottery in shops be able to have their prizes paid directly into their bank accounts.

“Not only will this see these prizes paid faster than ever before, but it also drastically cuts down on administration and postage costs."

The announcement from Allwyn comes after the Post Office said it would no longer pay National Lottery retail prizes between £500 and £50,000, also known as "mid-tier" prizes.

Allwyn said the new payment method will see more money go to National Lottery-funded Good Causes as it will reduce administration and postage costs.

With the new payment system, winners need to go to claims.national-lottery.co.uk, enter their email address and fill in a claim form.

Players have to input their personal details and upload an image of their winning ticket.

Once this has been done, the player will receive an email with a unique, secure link for them to submit their bank account number and sort code.

The system will check the name of the account matches the claim form and if so, the payment will be issued within 24 hours.

Winners can also choose to have their money paid by cheque.

Bear in mind, if the claim form is filled on a weekend date, any payments made take two to three days to clear.

The National Lottery launched in 1994, and has so far awarded £95billion in prizes.

How to boost your chances of winning the lottery

The anonymous expert and blogger "Lottery Guy" previously revealed you will boost your chances of winning if you go for a smaller jackpot.

He said: "Games with small jackpots tend to have better odds.

"So EuroMillions is 3.1 times harder to win than UK Lotto.

“That's before you factor in the higher ticket price too.

"And most people would be perfectly happy with the pretty huge jackpot that the Lotto provides."

Meanwhile, Danny Waites, data analyst at Embryo Digital shared his theory that some balls are statistically likely to appear more often than others which can make them a better bet.

His theory is that machines should eventually be able to predict the outcome of draws based on historical data.

For example, number 38 was most common with 407 appearances, while 23 was the second most drawn, appearing 392 times.