Everything players need to know about the Set For Life Monday draw - how it works, prize tiers, odds, and how to check if your ticket wins £10,000 a month.
Monday evening carries a particular weight for a growing number of UK lottery players. At 8:00pm, the National Lottery conducts one of its twice-weekly Set For Life draws - a game structurally unlike any other lottery product available in Britain, and one whose top prize cannot be collected in a single bank transfer. That distinction matters.
Set For Life is the first annuity lottery of its kind in the UK, paying its top two prizes in monthly instalments rather than as a one-off lump sum. For players conditioned by decades of jackpot culture, this requires a fundamental recalibration of what winning actually means.
The Structure of the Gameplayers select five main numbers from a pool of 1 to 47, plus a single Life Ball from 1 to 10. There are eight distinct prize combinations in total. The top prize - matching all five main numbers plus the Life Ball - delivers £10,000 every month for 30 years, a cumulative total of £3.6 million over three decades.
The second-tier prize is structured similarly. Matching all five main numbers without the Life Ball awards £10,000 every month for one year. Below these two annuity prizes, the remaining six prize tiers revert to standard fixed cash payments, scaled by how many numbers a ticket matches. Uk-lottoTickets cost £1.50 per play. The cut-off time for purchasing on draw days is 7:30pm, thirty minutes before the draw goes live. Tickets can be bought through authorised retail outlets or online through the National Lottery platform.
Monday's Place in the Weekly Cycle Draws take place every Monday and Thursday at 8:00pm. Monday's draw opens the weekly cycle and historically attracts players who set up entries at the weekend. Results are typically published within an hour of the official announcement.
Recent Monday draws have proceeded without a top-prize winner. The Monday 11 May draw attracted over 181,000 winners across all prize tiers, illustrating that while the jackpot remains elusive, significant prize money is distributed at lower match levels every week.
What Happens if a Winner Dies One question that distinguishes Set For Life from conventional lotteries involves the annuity's treatment after a winner's death. If a winner dies before receiving all monthly payments, the remaining balance is paid to their estate as a single lump sum. There is no mechanism for the annuity to continue to a named beneficiary in ongoing instalments.
Additionally, there is no cash alternative to the annuity structure under normal circumstances, though the National Lottery operator reserves the right to pay a lump sum if deemed necessary - for example, if a winner is not a UK resident at the time of their win, they would not be entitled to the regular monthly payments.
Super Chance Draws Periodically, the odds shift. The National Lottery can announce Super Chance draws at any time, during which matching all five main numbers without the Life Ball also wins the top prize of £10,000 a month for 30 years - effectively doubling the routes to the maximum payout in those specific draws. Uk-lottoPlayers should verify ticket numbers against official channels immediately after the 8:00pm draw. The next Monday draw takes place on 19 May 2026.