A very, very lucky person could be propelled to 671st place on Britain’s rich list – for the price of a £2.50 lottery ticket.
At £168m, Friday night’s National Lottery draw is the biggest-ever jackpot to be offered in the UK. A single winner would become richer than the chef Jamie Oliver, the multiple F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton and the singer Adele.
The record-breaking prize has accumulated after no player in Europe managed to match all five numbers and two lucky stars in Tuesday’s £167m draw. According to the competition’s rules, the prize fund can go no higher than €190m – £168m at Friday’s exchange rate – where it will remain for four more draws.
If nobody matches all seven numbers on the fifth, the prize money will roll down to the next tier of winners where there is at least one winner, most likely those who match five numbers and a single lucky star.
But if a single ticket scoops the top prize – at odds of about 140m to one, according to the EuroMillions website – it would create the UK and Europe’s biggest ever winner.
Players have been urged to buy their tickets early, with a 200% boost in sales expected for the draw. Camelot estimates that more than 26,000 tickets could be sold every minute in the hour before the draw closes at 7.30pm.
“The extraordinary sum would be life-changing whether won by an individual or syndicate, and we have plenty of champagne on ice ready to celebrate,” said Andy Carter, the National Lottery’s senior winners’ adviser.
“It would enable them to transform their life, as well as the lives of their friends and family, and we are ready to support them from the moment they claim.”
The current record holders are Colin and Chris Weir, from Largs in North Ayrshire, Scotland, who won £161m in 2011. UK winners have scooped five EuroMillions jackpots so far this year, with the biggest won by an anonymous ticketholder who banked £87m.
