Lucky punter wakes up €87m richer

A lucky punter in Ireland hit the jackpot last night by winning almost €87m in the EuroMillions lottery draw, the third highest amount ever won by a player from Ireland.

He or she is the seventh lucky Irish person to win the EuroMillions top prize.

The National Lottery website crashed last night as punters rushed to check their tickets. The winning numbers drawn were 6, 8, 34, 38 and 48. The Lucky Stars drawn were 3 and 9.

The unnamed winner will walk away with €86,732,923. This brings the total won by EuroMillions players in Ireland to over €726m since the game launched here in 2004.

Last March a syndicate from the West bought the winning ticket for the €15m jackpot. In June 2013 a lucky player scooped €94m on a ticket purchased in Beaumont, Dublin 9.

Last September, a young man from the South East shared a jackpot of over €25.6m with a player in Spain, taking home €12.8m. He purchased his lucky ticket in Ardkeen Superstores, Waterford.

Limerick woman Dolores McNamara continues to hold the record for the largest Irish EuroMillions win of over €115m in 2005.

The biggest jackpot in European lottery history had rolled over nine times before the then 45-year-old part-time cleaner defied odds of 76-million-to-one to hit on the winning combination. The mother of six had made the impulsive €2 ticket purchase while buying phone credit on her way to her local bar. Within a month, sales of the Euromillions had doubled in Ireland as a result of Ms McNamara’s win. There was no winner of last night’s EuroMillions Plus top prize of €500,000.