Lottery jackpot - Lotto family aren’t the only winners

Congratulations to Helen and Paul Cunningham from the Fairhill area of Cork city for their luck in winning the record €16 million lottery prize.

Many people say that they would not like to win that much, because it would change their lives too much.

Of course, if they won too much, they could always give away the excess. They would find no shortage of takers who would be delighted to oblige them.

John O’Shea of GOAL has again argued that there should be a cap of €1 million on any individual prize. The remainder could be held over so that multiple winners would get a million each.

But there is little doubt that more people play the lotto when the prizes are bigger. There were 2.5 million entries for Saturday’s €16 million jackpot.

The bigger jackpots attract the greater number of players, so those running the National Lottery are unlikely to cap the prize, if it detracts in any way from the game’s appeal.

The chief executive of the National Lottery, Dermot Griffin, argues that a greater number of tickets afford his organisation more funds to distribute for worthy causes. In that sense it is a game in which there are many big winners, not just those who scoop a jackpot.