Development Lotteries Board, known as Development Lottery Centre at the inception was established on January 1, 1983. The main objective of the Centre was to assist the Government to raise finances.

Subsequently in 1993 the Development Lottery Centre was formed to a Trust known as the “Development Lottery Trust”. On 12th August 1997 the Trust was converted to “Development Lotteries Board” by the Development Lotteries Board Act.20 of 1997.

Development Lotteries Board entered into the lottery market by introducing instant tickets in the year 1983 and was the first Lottery organization to introduce television lottery draws to the lottery market with the launch of "Saturday Fortune" in the year 1987. Initially "Saturday Fortune" was drawn only on Saturdays and later on extended to Wednesdays too.

The second phase of ‘Wasana Chakraya’ television draw commenced on 25th January 1998 drawing on every Sunday. This was tailor made for non-wining instant scratch lottery tickets. The response to this programme from the public was very favorable.

Second television draw lottery known as "Development Fortune" was launched on 9th October 1998. This is drawn on Tuesdays and Fridays. The unique feature of this ticket is the introduction of ‘Zodiac’ symbols along with numbers to identify winnings.

On 26th January 2004 we were able to launch "Jayoda" to be drawn on Mondays and Thursdays. This ticket offers a Super Jackpot in addition to the standard jackpot and regular cash prizes. The Super Jackpot starts with an initial amount of Rs 10 million. The regular jackpot winners are entitled to opt for the cash prize of Rs.1 million or a house worth over Rs.1 million, which is the first in the history of lotteries in the Sri Lanka.

The income generated by Development Lotteries Board is credited to the President’s Fund, which in turn utilizes 50% of it for the Mahapola Scholarships Trust Fund. The balance generates various financial avenues to the poor people by way of uplifting their living standards, catering to the health, providing funds for the maintenance of religious institutions, welfare societies and sports and to the field of arts.

We record with pride that we were able to contribute following amounts to the president’s fund during the last 22 years.

Year	Contribution (Rs)
1983	40,000,000.00
1984	30,000,000.00
1985	160,000,000.00
1986	170,000,000.00
1987	100,000,000.00
1988	66,000,000.00
1989	100,000,000.00
1990	103,768,917.00
1991	110,000,000.00
1992	213,401,800.00
1993	477,100,000.00
1994	342,569,098.00
1995	371,336,687.00
1996	423,021,560.00
1997	478,144,603.00
1998	404,901,224.00
1999	361,658,593.00
2000	417,512,000.00
2001	485,569,254.00
2002	781,184,056.00
2003	631,688,294.00
2004	884,238,428.00
2005	972,083,172.00
2006	914,821,908.00
2007	860,057,195.00
2008	731,220,317.00
Total     10,630,277,106.00

Further we were able to create job opportunities for many thousands of unemployed youth by appointing 2000 dealers island wide and 59 distributors district-wise.