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Lotto fever grips country with £74million up for grabs
Last updated at 23:37pm on 13.10.06
National Lottery: A million punters an hour were snapping up tickets for the weekend jackpot
Lottery fever swept across Britain as a million punters per hour snapped up tickets for a £74million combined jackpot.
Sales for the main Lotto draw soared by 50 per cent after only the second triple rollover in the Lottery's 12-year history, with the estimated jackpot standing at £20m.
There was also a scramble for tickets for the EuroMillions draw, which had an estimated £54m jackpot, its second-highest ever, after a six-week rollover.
Lottery operator Camelot said ticket sales for the main Lottery draw alone were running at 15,000 per minute - or 250 per second - with another 6,000 per minute for EuroMillions.
If just one lucky player matches the numbers they would become the biggest ever single National Lottery winner if the jackpot tops the £20.1m won by Belfast housewife Iris Jeffrey in 2004.
Players have the added incentive of knowing the Lottery cannot roll over for a fourth time, meaning that if no-one matches all six numbers the jackpot will be distributed to players who match five numbers plus the bonus ball.
A Camelot spokesman said: "This jackpot has to be won. If no-one wins it outright it will be distributed among people who match five numbers plus the bonus ball, so there is there the possibility of several people becoming millionaires this weekend."
The only other triple rollover in the Lottery's history came in 2004, when several winners shared a £30m jackpot.
Retailers across the country brought in extra staff to cope with queues of hopeful punters, many of whom rarely buy Lottery tickets.
Singer Charlotte Church was drafted in to give the bumper draw an extra boost, posing in three different outfits in keeping with the 'triple' theme.
Sales of Lottery tickets have increased in the past two years, following several years of decline, and reached £5billion in 2005/6. To date more than £19billion has been given away to good causes.
The biggest ever Lottery jackpot was £42m in 1996, which was shared by three ticketholders. The largest payout for a single ticket was a £22.5m prize in 1995, but this was shared by business partners Paul Maddison and Mark Gardiner.
Europe's biggest lottery winner was Dublin housewife Dolores McNamara, who scooped £77m on the EuroMillions draw last year.
Those massive prizes were dwarfed by the world's biggest ever lottery win in 2002, when Andrew Whittaker Jr, a 55-year-old builder from West Virginia, won $315million dollars (£181million) on the American lottery.
He opted to take a £97million lump sum, rather than the full sum paid over out over 30 years.
