It’s taken over seven months but finally the €19.06 million Irish Lotto jackpot has been won. January 15 saw the first ever ‘must-be-won’ draw to ensure that the record amount finally found a home. Just one ticket scooped the top prize but there was an incredible 149 second tier winning tickets.
Not since June had the Irish Lotto jackpot been won. Time and time again, tickets got close to matching the six main balls but none of them became jackpot winners. There were over 60 draws without a win, the longest run without a jackpot in Irish Lotto history.
There has been plenty of criticism of the lack of a jackpot winner. Politicians even got involved with one calling the draw “unwinnable.” That was totally false of course and at no point were there any accusations of wrongdoings.
One concern was that the continual rollovers was hurting the confidence of players. However, despite no one winning the jackpot, there had been some big winners of late. The December 18 Irish Lotto draw produced a second tier win of just over a million euros.
Wednesday January 12 saw three tickets each win just over a quarter of a million euros for matching five of the main balls and the bonus ball. Wanting to see a jackpot winner, the organisers of the Irish Lotto asked the lottery regulator to allow a change in the rules. After some thought, the decision was made to allow a ‘must-be-won’ draw to be held on Saturday 15 January.
Must be Won Draw
If no ticket matched the six main numbers, then the €19.06 million jackpot would go to the next tier that produced a winner. That’s unlike in the UK Lotto where the jackpot amount is rolled down to the other tiers.
There was massive demand for tickets, and this caused the Irish Lotto website and app to crash. The numbers that finally saw the Irish Lotto jackpot won were: 02-09-16-30-37-40. The bonus ball was 23. After all this time with without anyone matching the six main numbers, one ticket managed to do just that and scoop all of the €19.06 million. Just where the winning ticket was sold isn’t yet known.
What was truly bizarre about this draw though was the number of second-tier winners. The past nine draws had seen just 12 tickets able to match five main balls and the bonus ball. Four of those draws saw no second-tier winner.
Amazingly though, the January 15 draw saw 149 tickets fail by one number to win the jackpot. Rather than the recent large second prize wins, those tickets will receive only €36,687.
This won’t be the only ‘must-be-won’ draw. The new rules state that once the jackpot cap has been reached, only five rollovers will be allowed before the ‘must-be-won’ draw. That’s different from the UK Lotto where only five rollovers can take place before the ‘must-be-won’ draw has to take place.
In fact, January 15 also saw such a draw take place in the UK Lotto game. No ticket matched the six main numbers so the £12.07 million jackpot rolled down to the other winning tiers. That gave one ticket that matched the five main balls and the bonus ball a prize of £1.148 million. The total was enhanced from the usual £1 million second-tier prize.
