Responsibility for the National Lottery rests with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Within Northern Ireland, the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL) is the lead Department and is responsible for advising DCMS on Lottery matters.

There are currently four independent distributing bodies responsible for distributing Lottery money in Northern Ireland. These are: the Sport Northern Ireland; the Arts Council of Northern Ireland; the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Big Lottery Fund.

To date approximately £717m of National Lottery money has been awarded to around 13,600 projects in Northern Ireland.