Largest ever Lotto Jackpot goes to Carlow

For nearly two months Ireland has been in an ever growing Lotto fever. There was no winner of the jackpot since May 3rd, and subsequently the twice-weekly roll-over of the top prize went on and on, a total of sixteen times, until it stood last night at the enormous sum of € 18,963,441, making it the largest jackpot ever since the start of Ireland's National Lottery in 1988.

With the growing amount of money in the jackpot the interest of the country's punters in the National Lottery grew massively. It is estimated that more than 3500 Irish people bought a ticket every minute during peak time in the run up to last night's draw, which was watched live on television by more than half of the nation's population.

A couple of hours later the news emerged that there was a winner, a single ticket, sold in the South-East of the country (where I live myself). I checked my numbers immediately, but sadly is was not me this time.
This morning we learned that the lucky ticket was sold last Wednesday in a supermarket in Carlow (half-way between Dublin and Waterford).

This weekend has been exceptionally lucky for players of our various lotteries. Not only was the largest ever Irish jackpot won last night, on Friday evening an even luckier punter in Spain won the jackpot of the European multi-national Euro-Millions lottery, which - after several roll-overs in previous weeks - stood at the amazing sum of € 58,278,337.

On April 26th, only a week before the Irish jackpot began rolling over again, another massive roll-over jackpot worth € 15.65 million (the third-largest sum ever in Ireland) was won in Dublin. (see my entry from April 27th)

Congratulations to the two extremely lucky people, and to everyone who won anything over this weekend. As I had - as usual - no luck at all, I will continue to be a hard-working consultant and a happy blogger.

The Emerald Islander

UPDATE

It has meanwhile emerged that the largest ever Irish Lotto jackpot - worth € 18,963,441 - was not won by a single person or family. RTE Radio reported that the winner was in fact a syndicate of sixteen workers from a company in Carlow, who spent € 2 each on a combined ticket. Thus the massive win will be divided into sixteen shares of € 1,185,215 each. This is still an awful lot of money for any individual, and in my opinion a lot fairer than one person winning nearly € 19 million out of the blue. Few people would be prepared for such a massive windfall, which might not always lead to joy and happiness.