€4 Quickpick winner makes Lotto history

One lucky person was this morning waking up €8.6m richer after becoming the National Lottery’s biggest prize winner.

The winner spent €4 on a Quickpick ticket in the Statoil Service Station on the Castlecomber Road in Kilkenny on Tuesday to walk away with €8,606,212.

It is the biggest single ticket win since the National Lottery started in 1988.

In November 1996 a jackpot of €9.5m was shared by a number of tickets. A couple from Co Cavan took €4.75m, as did a seven-person syndicate in Meath.

The biggest single confirmed winner, a Cork farmer, chose to remain anonymous, after scooping more than €7.8m in May 1992.

The National Lottery says that 3,000 people per minute were playing at its peak between 5pm and 7.45pm last night.