Lotto hits the jackpot with larger pay-outs and Euromillions success

FALLING National Lottery sales have been rescued by an explosion in the popularity of Euromillions and the new larger Lotto jackpots.

Ticket sales for the twice-weekly Lotto games were down for the second year in a row up to last November when the game changed to include 45 numbers instead of the previous 36, making it more difficult to win but substantially increasing the size of the jackpots.

The formula proved successful with sales for the last three months of the year soaring back to pre-2005 levels. Lotto director Dermot Griffin said the upward trend had continued this year. “Our biggest jackpot was €8.6 million at the end of January. We had more people playing at the end of January than we had in the weeks before we made the changes,” he said.