€16m up for grabs as Lotto jackpot rolls over for 16th time

TONIGHT’S national lottery jackpot is heading for a recession-busting €16 million, making it the 16th draw in the row without a major winner since September 1.

Despite the popular myth that Lotto bosses arrange to have a particularly big jackpot to be won on bank holiday weekends, that is not the case, according to the National Lottery.

In fact, only once this year has the Lotto jackpot been won on a bank holiday weekend. There were no winners of either the Patrick’s Day jackpot or the jackpots on the easter, June or August bank holidays, but a jackpot of €4m was won on the Saturday of the May bank holiday, when €2m was added to the pot. This time round the National Lottery will not be adding to what is already set to be one of the biggest jackpots ever.

“This jackpot has been rolling, rolling, rolling for 16 draws and who knows when it will end?” explained a lottery spokeswoman, who was also quick to debunk the notion that certain numbers tended to come up more often than others.

“Some sets of numbers are very popular, and played by lots of people regularly. Good examples are sequences like 1-2-3-4-5-6, or 2-4-6-8-10. Combinations based on diagonal lines on Lotto playslips are also very popular.”

However, the spokeswoman added: “Every combination of six numbers, from 1-45, has the same chance of winning. However, if one of the popular combinations listed above did win, there would be several other winners and the prize could be quite low.”

That is unlikely to be the case tonight, though, as the jackpot is set to be the highest in months. The last time the Lotto jackpot reached near this level was on April 14, 2010, when a lucky couple bought their winning ticket in Eason, Dungarvan, Co Waterford, and scooped the second largest jackpot since the Lotto game began in 1988, worth €16,717,717.

The second largest Lotto jackpot in 2010 so far was €7,457,357. It was won on January 16 by Michelle Ryan from Athlone, Co Westmeath. She bought her lucky ticket in Kilmartin’s Service Station, Dublin Road, Athlone.

“There is great excitement in the lead up to tonight’s draw,” added the Lottery spokeswoman. “As usual, we expect most players to purchase their tickets today so we encourage everyone not to leave it too close to the close of sales at 7.45pm when Lotto agents will be at their busiest. Sales are expected to peak in the hours leading up to the draw as we expect more than 2,400 tickets per minute to be purchased between 5-7.45pm.”