Name plaque for lottery machine 'Guinevere', Random Number Selector and Name Plaque, used for drawing the British National Lottery, 1994

We have been playing the National Lottery in the UK since 1994, when Prime Minister John Major set up the money-raising scheme and the BBC broadcast the first weekly draws using machines such as Guinevere. Millions around the country were glued to their television sets, hoping their numbers would come up.

Guinevere is one of three random-number-selecting machines used in the UK’s National Lottery live draws. Each week, as host Noel Edmonds whipped the crowds at BBC Television Centre into a frenzy of anticipation, all eyes focused on its dropping balls.

One at a time, the numbers flashed up on millions of television screen across the country. Somebody was about to become a millionaire. Yet for all its modern glitz, the machine was performing an ancient and venerated statistical task – the selection of a random number.