Record lottery jackpot up for grabs

This makes it significantly harder to win on an ordinary draw: roughly a one in 45 million chance, as opposed one in 14 million.

Camelot reported it sold about 200 tickets per second in the hour before sales closed, but players taking a punt were left disappointed.

The excitement comes after Wednesday’s £50 million draw went unclaimed meaning at least one victor will be declared tonight.

Today’s draw is noteworthy because the rule changes made to the lottery past year have resulted in an anomalous situation where the “expected value” of each £2 ticket – that is, the amount you can expect to win per ticket on average – is more than £2.

As well as the biggest Lotto jackpot ever – £57.8 million – tomorrow, £44 million is up for grabs in the EuroMillions tonight, a combined total of £101 million, which Camelot says has led to an “unprecedented” level of interest.

Dermot Griffin of the National Lottery said “We’d expect for this draw there would be about three quarters of a million people entering the draw”.

Orford couple Michael and Margaret Sampson had plenty to celebrate after matching five numbers plus the bonus ball in the Lotto Quadruple Rollover in January 2014, scooping up £585,956.

If, like the last 12 draws, nobody matches the six numbers rolled out the prize will be shared between the next tier of winners: Five matches and bonus ball; five matches; four matches and so on.

That means that the jackpot for next Friday’s draw on January 15 is now worth $50 million, including six MaxMillions prizes worth $1 million each.

The UK National Lottery was first drawn on November 19, 1994.

At the National Lottery’s 20th birthday celebration in 2014, Lynne Pittiglio, 56, a slimming world consultant from Washington, who won £181,055 in September 2013 said people should be proud of the contribution they make to good causes by buying a lottery ticket. If you guess correctly, you win £60.

“So what you would like to be able to do is to work out what combinations other people are choosing and choose different”.

‘Pick numbers you think are unpopular’.

New operators Premier Lotteries Ireland promised jackpots would be bigger when they raised the minimum price of a ticket to €4 past year.

Retailers in Sittingbourne and Sheerness have seen a surge in national lottery ticket sales as punters chase a potential prize of almost £60 million.