By Todd Northrop
In the United States, a record jackpot is cause for celebration and waves of ticket-buying, but in the United Kingdom players are bemoaning tomorrow night's record £42.2 million (US$62.62 million) Lotto jackpot and threatening to boycott the game, according to local media reports.
Apparently having a jackpot won frequently is more important to Brits than the size of the pot.
Tomorrow's record £42.2 million jackpot is the result of a record 10th rollover. The reason for the high number of rollovers is the new game format, in which the odds of landing the top prize is now one in 45 million after operator Camelot made a series of controversial changes, including adding an extra 10 balls to the draw.
That came after the price of playing the game doubled to £2.
This week lottery players vented their fury and dismay on social media site Twitter.
Benjamin Copp said, "Remember when we doubled the price? Now let's triple the odds."
Tony Marszoi said, "Anyone else notice it costs £2 a line now (and is) more difficult to win."
Katt Abos added, "My chances of winning have gone from 14 million to 1 to an astonishing 45 million to 1 but the changes are supposed to encourage me."
And Nigel Wilson said, "Another rollover — there's a surprise. Too many rollovers. Think it's time to boycott the National Lottery."
The past Saturday the jackpot rolled over yet again when no one matched the winning numbers of 17, 21, 31, 38, 44, and 58, with bonus number 20.
Under the new Lotto game rules the jackpot can grow up to £50 million. If there is no winner in the following draw the pot is shared between players who get five numbers and the bonus ball.
Will player reaction suddenly change if that happens? Nobody knows for sure, because this is all new territory for the UK National Lottery.
The last draw to produce a jackpot winner was back on November 14. That jackpot was worth £4.34 million (US$6.61 million), which was typical for a UK Lotto jackpot win.
Despite some players venting their anger, a National Lottery spokesman properly promoted the huge prize.
"The Lotto jackpot is poised to break records with £42.2million waiting to be won," the spokesman said. "A single winner would instantly become the biggest Lotto winner the nation has ever seen."
The new Lotto game does always have several big winners each drawing, despite the outlash about the top prize rollovers. Each drawing there are five guaranteed winners of £1 million in the Millionaire Raffle and 20 guaranteed winners of £20,000. Each Lotto ticket purchase includes one entry to the raffle.
In the Saturday evening drawing, 89 players matched five out of the seven numbers, winning £1,351, but there was no winner of the £350,000 Lotto HotPicks top prize.
UK Lotto is drawn twice per week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, at 8:00 pm local time. The winning numbers are published on Lottery Post's UK National Lottery Results page soon after each drawing. Unlike other lottery websites on the Internet, Lottery Post publishes the complete UK Lotto results, including all winning Millionaire Raffle numbers.
Technically, the odds is 6 times worse, not 3, because not only did they add 10 balls, they doubled the price.
Give a Power Ball or Mega Millions player odds of 45 million to 1, we would be jumping for joy.
How much is two pounds worth in American dollars? Maybe double like say, $4.00? or more than that?
Hearse track where is your humor when we need it now?
good on the poms, i would boycott all the dreaws, except the 50 million pound ones. nothing business like more than boycotts
Right now 2 pounds is worth $2.96.
Subject to change.
I would like 45 mil to 1 odds with a crack at $184 million.
How many players match 5 plus the bonus ball in typical drawings? Just wondering if that even happens every draw, or if it happens so much that the jackpot would be split so many ways that it wouldn't be worth it?
The Directors of the PowerBall should take note of this. That was the whole reason they changed the Powerball format back in October,,, for higher jackpots. I pretty much stopped playing Powerball now. It just sucks with having to pay 2 or 3 bucks with odds like that. Just my opinion.
Right, they don't know how good they got it. If we had a guaranteed 5 raffle winners every game i would play a lot more.
I think though the odds are obviously worse now and it's pricier the guaranteed 5 millionaires are unique and make the game worth playing. I would trade in my 6/49 in a heartbeat.
But, Mr. Reddog,
You can't stop playing Powerball.
OK, especially not for this Wednesday night.
Then, if you want to stop, OK.
(am I nuts? what am I talking about ?!?!)
ok, maybe 1 or 2. lol until it is won.
Well that's a misleading headline. They aren't upset because the pot is high. They're upset because the price doubled and the odds of not winning tripled. If the pot had reached £42 million without the changes that came with it, the social media sites would be filled with wishes and dreams of winning instead of anger and threat of boycotts.
I don't think they're any less mercenary than we are. Just more vocal about getting shafted.
Same here. I will not play it.
The winner(s) have the right to remain anonymous. They won't be paraded in front of the media, unless they are silly enough to want that.
Winning, or sharing, such a large jackpot would be great, but it would be very difficult to handle in the full glare of the media. US lotteries please take note.
Merely entertainment, nothing lasting.
Instead, I would rather see the massive amounts of lottery monies being spent, in all countries, to create manufacturing facilities. These manufacturing facilities would pay each adult, full-time employee at least $50K/year salary for full-time, 40 hours per week work. No overtime, because enough attendance reliable, full-time adult employees hired -- in each facility -- to staff 3 shifts, each weekday. On Saturdays and Sundays several 'weekends-only employees' would work 8 or 12-hour shifts; these employees would be those who need income, yet aren't mentally able to work five days per week jobs yet. All facilities would offer 1/2 salary, full-time work "internships/work-to-perfect" to teenager GED and high school graduates. Now ... does that sound worthwhile to any senior teenagers and adults?
With this established, in order to use existing buildings for the new manufacturing facilities campuses, who's for closing TWO THIRDS of all for-huge-profit colleges [pay huge amounts, give up years of your life to receive huge abuses/misunderstandings from this hired vendor, not be guaranteed full-time or even part-time employment, and then begin paying back huge past education loan(s)]?
Camelot...and to think, PA wanted them in charge.
Good for the Brits...let them get mad and I hope they don't play. Rearranging odds/balls/payouts/winning combos is wrong for
a game that people have played in the past and enjoyed. Don't these suckers realize that making odds worse ticks people off and
turns them off too? They just see more $$$$$$.
One person will win, how many times must that happen for people to totally get sick of it? How many times can they change the
game and still expect people to play? People are not dumb and I hope the ones that think buying hundreds of chances on a game
with millions and millions of odds to one finally get a clue and stop feeding the monster.
Agree with the UK lotto players. It's better with often but minor jackpots. Now they have made winning too hard.
You can't possibly be serious. Do you really and honestly think that what you're presenting is even remotely feasible?
The lottery creates billions of dollars (for the states which have them) for education. Even with those billions, there are still shortfalls enough so that non-essential programs are being cut left and right.
For profit schools are a business. Why go after a business for making a profit when every state has local colleges anyone can attend for a fraction of the cost. It's not as if they have some kind of monopoly on tertiary level education. Anyone with an IQ high enough to take classes should also know that education is no guarantee of employment.
I am.
It could be worse -- So far there have only been 25 drawings under the new system. Here are 5 of them. If you want to play a set of numbers - Play 29 31 41 55 58 59.
Good Luck & Best Wishes To All.........................................
Your Welcome.........................
Forgot to highlight the 55 in the 3rd drawing listed above..............................