Saturday’s jackpot is the result of 13 consecutive rollovers and follows the number of balls in the draw increasing from 49 to 59 in October.
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He said: “There’s definitely been a gentle uplift this last week in people buying tickets”.
The biggest cheque won on a single Lotto ticket was £22.5 million shared by work colleagues Mark Gardiner and Paul Maddison from Hastings in 1995, and the biggest ever individual Lotto victor is Iris Jeffrey from Belfast who won £20.1 million in 2004.
“The change means you are more likely to date a supermodel, odds of 189,200 to one, or give birth to identical quadruplets, a 15 million to one chance, than win tonight’s jackpot”, he said.
The inflated jackpot comes after lottery operator Camelot made controversial changes which experts said would make it three times harder to scoop the top prize.
As well as the biggest Lotto jackpot ever – £57.8 million – tomorrow, £44 million is up for grabs in the EuroMillions tonight, a combined total of £101 million, which Camelot says has led to an “unprecedented” level of interest.
Wednesday’s jackpot reached £50.4million and players were so eager to get involved that The National Lottery website crashed at around 6pm. If no-one has managed to match five plus the bonus, the jackpot will be shared between all ticket holders who have matched five numbers.
The new rules, however, also stipulate that if the jackpot exceeds £50m, the money must be paid out in the following draw – whether or not any ticket gets all six balls.
“Don’t choose numbers all in a row like one to six, don’t choose last week’s winning numbers”.
The postcodes are ranked by the number of prize wins of £50,000 or more since the National Lottery began.
The main lottery prize has rolled over in every draw since November 18.
If no one picks the correct six tonight, the jackpot will be distributed between those with most correct balls.
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But Powerball and Washington State officials warn there’s a risk going through a third-party because “there are no regulations of websites that claim to sell tickets or to sell you a “service” to buy and hold tickets for you”. But for the first time ever, the potential value of a National Lottery ticket is higher than its £2 cost, as research economists at KPMG explained to the Guardian.
