Richard Desmond’s recently launched Health Lottery is to be subject of an Advertising Standards Authority investigation over concerns that it has misled players with advertisements dressed as editorial and misleading claims about a £100,000 jackpot.

Claims made in two front page articles in the Desmond run Express and Star, described the initiative as a “Lotto tonic for Britain” and “New lottery to make Britain better”, prompting complaints that the editorials should have been clearly marked as advertisements.

The lottery’s claim that players who pick five winning numbers will receive £100k is also being investigated, as are claims that Health Lottery players are seven times more likely to win than in the National Lottery.

Health Lottery chief exec martin Hall said the chances of a top prize winner earning less than £100k were a “tiny 0.009%”

Hall added: “Our use of the odds of winning our top prize compared to the National Lottery are based on mathematical fact. The chance of winning our top prize is 2,000,000:1 compared with 14,000,000:1 for the top prize on the National Lottery, and obviously people understand that the prize payouts are different.”