Tracking lottery results – from print to smartphone

Checking the lottery results and seeing if you have become an instant millionaire can now be done in a host of different ways thanks to the development of the internet, digital TV and smartphones meaning that you don't have to rely on watching the draws live or wait until the results are published in the following day's newspaper to find out if you are suddenly rich!

Many daily newspapers publish the UK lottery results and some also carry news of other draws, such as the Euro lottery and the Irish Lotto. They are very handy for checking the results a day late but if you can't wait that long there is a host of other ways to find out the results; many available while you are on the move.

The iPhone 3G has proved immensely successful since its launch in 2008. Much of that success has been attributed to the wide availability of applications that can be used on the phone. Indeed, Apple recently announced that there are now in excess of 85,000 different iPhone apps available for download, and amongst that number are quite a few that provide instant access to the latest lottery results; allowing users to check numbers wherever they may be.

General news and lottery-specific websites also carry the latest lottery results and some of the more advanced sites provide sophisticated results checking tools that allow visitors to automatically check UK National Lotto results up to 180 days old. All you need to do is choose the numbers you have played from the 49 available and then save them as your numbers. Not only will such tools check your numbers against the latest draw but will also check the previous 52 draws for both Wednesday and Saturday draws showing whether that number combination has won on any of those occasions.

Such automatic lottery result checkers are great if you find any old tickets, as prizes can be claimed up to 180 days following the date of the draw, so by checking you may just find that you have won a tidy sum! The latest results are available a few minutes after the draw has taken place, if you can't get access to a TV to watch the draw this is the next best thing.

Of course, online lotto result checking sites are also accessible via mobile phones that allow web browsing, so those without iphones can also check the results on their mobile. If all else fails mobile phone users can simply ring friends or family to get the results from TV text if they are that desperate to find out whether they have won.