Are my neighbours in the Postcode Lottery is one of the most common questions around the People’s Postcode Lottery. You see a winning postcode announced, it looks a lot like yours, and you wonder whether the people next door are quietly collecting a windfall. Here is what can and can’t be known.
Can you find out who plays?
No. Player identities are private, and the lottery does not publish how many people in a given postcode are signed up. That protects individuals, particularly in small streets or blocks where naming participants would be an obvious privacy problem. If a neighbour wins, the only way you’ll know is if they tell you or agree to publicity.
You can check whether your postcode has won recently using the results section of the Postcode Lottery website. Winning postcodes are announced daily, so a search will show if your street has been drawn.
How many people take part in the Postcode Lottery?
The lottery doesn’t give a simple headline figure for active players, but its financial numbers give a sense of scale. Ticket sales in 2025 came to £735 million, and a ticket costs £12.50 a month. That works out at roughly £150 per ticket per year, which suggests something in the region of four to five million tickets. That is an estimate rather than an official count, and some players hold more than one ticket.
The lottery also says 84% of players won a prize in 2025. Many of those wins are small, but it shows how widely prizes are spread.
Postcode Lottery runs its draws on behalf of 20 different Postcode Trusts, which use the proceeds to fund grants to charities and good causes. Players have raised more than £1.8 billion for good causes since it began.
The basic rules
Your postcode is your ticket. You sign up with your home postcode, pay £12.50 a month per ticket, and you are automatically entered into all of that month’s draws.
Some key points:
- You must be 18 or over to play.
- The postcode must be your main home address. Playing with an old postcode after moving would breach the rules.
- Only postcodes with paying players can win. A postcode with no subscribers can’t be drawn, so a winning postcode always contains at least one player.
- Only players win. If your postcode is drawn and you haven’t signed up, you get nothing, even if the entire street is celebrating.
- Winners are picked by random number generator from postcodes that have tickets in the draw.
- A minimum of 30% of each ticket price goes to charity, while no more than 35% goes towards operating costs.
What can your postcode win?
The prize structure is the main reason neighbours can end up winning together:
- Daily draws: Winning postcodes are announced every day, and there are £1,000 prizes announced daily.
- Weekly £15 prizes: Every Thursday, at least 1,000 postcodes are drawn where every ticket wins £15.
- Millionaire Street: Every Saturday, players in one postcode share £1 million.
- Monthly £250,000 draw: Every month except December, every ticket in one winning postcode wins a guaranteed £250,000.
- Postcode Millions: A multi-million pound prize is shared in the December draws.
How prizes are shared
This is where the “neighbours” question gets interesting. The £1 million Millionaire Street prize is split among the tickets in the winning postcode. If four players each hold one ticket, they’d get £250,000 each.
There is a cap, though. The maximum prize per ticket is 10% of that draw’s ticket sales, up to £500,000. If the cap means the full £1 million can’t be shared out within the winning postcode, the balance goes to tickets in the surrounding postcode sector, and occasionally the wider district. The £1 million is therefore always paid out in full each week.
The same principle applies to Postcode Millions: if there aren’t enough winning tickets in the sector, the area may expand to the district.
Holding several tickets increases your share when your postcode is drawn, because payouts are calculated per ticket.
So, are your neighbours playing?
Realistically, with millions of tickets across Great Britain, it’s likely that at least some people near you are. But there’s no way to confirm it, and the lottery deliberately keeps that information private. The best way to find out is the old-fashioned one: ask.
It’s also worth remembering that the Postcode Lottery is a game of chance and a monthly commitment. You pay whether or not you win, and it’s sensible to treat it as entertainment within your budget. If you have concerns about your gambling, GamCare offers free help and advice.