SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The National Lottery are facing a boycott from gamblers, after paying out just £883 of a huge £28.6 million jackpot. New rules left players furious, as the promised jackpot was not won because no-one had all six numbers, or five balls plus the bonus number.
These new rules make it harder for anyone to strike lucky, as shown by the game moving to its 30th rollover. On Wednesday night, the largest pay-out went to the 78 people who matched five balls, taking £883 each.
Another 4,766 people won £93 for picking four balls, 104,777 received £25 for three correct balls and almost 1 million people got a free lucky dip for matching two balls correctly. Yet, one winner did receive £1 million in the raffle draw and another 20 won £20,000.
This Saturday, the jackpot will rise again to £32.8 million. But since the changes made by Camelot in October 2015, the odds of a jackpot win rose from one in 14 million to one in 45 million. In fact, you are more likely to get struck by lightning (576,000 to one), become an astronaut (one in 12.1 million) or be crushed by a meteorite (one in 700,000).
In October, ten more balls were added to the game, tripling the jackpot but making chances of winning much lower. The ‘raffle’ was added giving people an extra chance to win £1 million in every draw.
Camelot defended the changes made in October, claiming they ‘were designed to deliver more money for National Lottery Good Causes, by having bigger, more exciting jackpots, and creating more millionaires than ever before’.
A spokesman for Camelot responded with the following statement: “Over one million tickets won a prize in Wednesday’s Lotto draw. The top prize was £1 million – a guaranteed millionaire is made in every Lotto draw – and there were also 20 prizes of £20,000. At the end of the day, it’s a lottery and dependent on the balls drawn and how many people match with those balls.
“So far there has been a record-breaking £66 million jackpot, which saw huge levels of excitement and unprecedented demand for tickets, and over 80 millionaires or multi-millionaires have been created in just over four months – including six lucky jackpot winners.
“As everyone knows, bigger jackpots and more millionaires mean more sales, and more sales mean more money for good causes – which is what The National Lottery is all about.”
