BY JAMES SIMONS
The National Lottery jackpot of £50.4m for Wednesday draw will roll over to an estimated £57.8m on Saturday after no-one won the record £50.4m on offer on Wednesday, Camelot has stated…
Camelot’s rules means that if no-one matches six numbers on Saturday, the next tier of winners will share the Lotto prize. The lottery jackpot has rolled over 13 times, making it one of the longest periods without a jackpot claimant since the lottery was established in the UK 21 years ago.
The lottery has always cost British punters a single pound until recent changes last year introduced a £2 charge for a lottery ticket , with extra 10 numbers added to the original 6 numbers ranging between 1 and 49.
Mathematicians estimate the chances of winning to have gone from 1 in 14 million to 1 in 45 million, making it relatively less attractive to play the lottery for twice the original price if the price of obtaining a ticket has doubled. Before now, the largest National Lottery jackpot was £42m, shared between three lucky ticket holders in January 1996. Under Camelot’s rules, the jackpot will be shared out between winners in the first draw after the prize reaches £50m.
This means that if nobody wins next Saturday, the prize will be shared among those who get 5 numbers and the bonus ball.
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Every Briton has fantasied about winning the lottery ever since we were enticed with the splendor and luxury that could instantaneously transform the landscape our lives and elevate our well-being to heights previously thought impossible. The reality has always been that only very few in comparison to the population as a whole have ever actually been fortunate to be beneficiaries of this dream opportunity. Some have benefited tremendously from it, but many have squandered it and experience a life of misery and exploitation as a result of a luck experience most of us would trade anything for.
The rush for yesterdays dream prize was marked by an unexpected crash in Camelot’s website. in the hope of being that lucky and envied winner. But when the sad reality hit home that a dream is only a dream until it comes true, several players took to tweeter to criticise Camelot’s new system that makes it much more difficult to win the lottery, condemning it as laughable and ridiculous, that the games operators would consider us naïve enough to believe that the chances of winning are higher under their new scheme, when mathematicians say otherwise, and nobody has won the jackpot lottery after 13 roll overs., for the first time in its history in in the UK. Indeed, Camelot need to take a second look at the game they have changed, and the so called innovation that has made the game less popular. Sarah Moyles from Leytonstone , east London, told The eye of media ” I don’t even bother with the lottery anymore, its a waste of time. Even before the changes, I always kind of felt I was paying for the winner”. Well, you got to be in it to win it, but Moyles clearly is no fan. Neil Peterson from Enfield said ” it is absolutely ridiculous that Camelot would change the game this radically. They are practically making it impossible for people to win. It’s just not good enough. The day they announced the changes in the game, that was the last time I played. I was an occasional player before then, especially on roll over occasions, but I saw this coming with the extra 10 balls added”. ”No winners after 13 roll overs, not impressed”, he added.
Incidentally, America followed a similar path with us yesterday after their powerball jackpot skyrocketed to a record $675m following a failure by the whole country to produce a winner. Wednesday’s jackpot of $500m was the 6th largest in North America and the biggest since a $564.1m powerball prize was shared by players in north Carolina, Texas and Puerto Rico last February. Considering the spread of the game across 44 states of the most capitalist nation in the world, it is unsurprising that the jackpot prize in the United States has once reached an awesome £656m prize, only two years ago by the way. What on earth will the winner do with that money- take it to their grave? Since November last year, Americans have been chasing the jackpot whilst the jackpot has been running away from them, but it hasn’t stopped the chase. The odds of winning the American powerball is 1 in 292 million. wow!
Texas Lottery spokeswoman , Kelly Cripe said this weekend’s powerball will be the largest in the history of any U.S lottery game. It seems the UK is chasing the American standard in the lottery a sit does in politics. As the saying goes, ‘when America sneezes, Britain catches a cold’.
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