The National Lottery first aired in the UK in 1994, presented by Noel Edmonds. I remember the days of Saturday night TV with Noel's house party followed by the Lottery, sitting down as a family; whereas, now it is often a quick draw of the numbers and not the family show it used to be.

I was too young to play when the Lottery first started but I remeber my dad letting us help him pick some numbers, and I think he won £10 for matching 3 numbers - we're still waiting for the day when we match all 6 numbers!

The TV show back when it started was a Saturday night TV programme with a different celebrity invited to press the all important button to release the balls and draw the winning numbers. There is now often a gameshow linked to the Lottery programme where contestants play various games to win monetary prizes or holidays across the world, these gameshows don't seem to last more than a few months before the producers come up with a new idea for a gameshow so I've never really managed to get into watching any of them.

The Lottery has also grown since it first started (although the prize pot has got somewhat smaller as people seem to loose interest), with the original one draw on a Saturday now extended to a Wednesday as well, with Thunderball, Euromillions and Daily Play also being drawn as well. I think people have lost interest because there are so many draws to choose from and as people spend their cash on one or the other the prize pot falls and the attraction of winning becomes less.