Odd Brits furious that lottery jackpot is so high

Oct 2, 2017, 8:45 am (11 comments)

UK National Lottery

UK lottery players are calling for a boycott after there was no jackpot winner for the sixth draw in a row

By Todd Northrop

British media is reporting that lottery players in the United Kingdom are 'disappointed' and 'furious' that lottery jackpots in the island nation have reached record levels.

Players were left disappointed after Saturday's £14.4 million (US$19.1 million) jackpot rolled over once again, as did Friday night's Euro Millions drawing.

Around the world, huge lottery jackpots caused by multiple drawings without a top winner generate mass interest and excitement in the lottery, but in the UK it seems that many players desire small jackpots with a winner every week.

Anger was directed at Lotto operator Camelot — which also oversees EuroMillions in the UK — amid claims that it has become just too difficult to win the jackpot.

A Facebook group called Boycott The National Lottery has been set up and featured furious player comments. One wrote, "The odds are so absurdly weighted in their favour."

Another commented, "Just think — they have put more numbers on every game over the years — prices up but payouts disgusting."

In October 2015 Camelot added 10 numbers to the game's matrix in order to counter falling sales by increasing jackpots. The odds of winning a Lotto jackpot went from 1 in 14 million to 1 in 45 million.

Also, new rules were put in place allowing the jackpot to roll over for longer than before.  Previously, the jackpot was automatically split up and awarded to second-tier winners after just four drawings without a top prize winner, but after the rules change jackpots could rollover until they reach £22 million (US$29.2 million).

The new rules had the desired effect of increasing jackpots to record levels, but Camelot did not count on the angry push-back they would receive from many players accustomed to seeing frequent winners.

Camelot argues that, under the new rules, the chances of winning at least £1 million have improved and that Lucky Dip tickets create an extra 1.8 million winners each week.

But inconsolable players complain it is now a lot harder to win the big jackpot.

Making matters worse this past weekend, the UK National Lottery website suffered a Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack from hackers that brought the site down and left players unable to purchase tickets online for almost two hours.

Lottery sales at retail store locations were unaffected by the website outage however.

On Twitter, the Lottery explained, "We're very sorry that many players are currently unable to access the National Lottery website or app. Our 46,000 retailers are unaffected."

A Lotto spokesman added, "Please accept our sincere apologies if you were unable to play tonight's games due to the website issue that affected many players."

UK Lottery players were also 'furious' with another huge jackpot available to them this weekend, as the multi-country Euro Millions game's jackpot rose to the highest level the game has ever seen.

On Friday night EuroMillions experienced another rollover, increasing the jackpot to €190 Million (US$224.5 Million) — which was labeled by some UK lottery players as "rubbish".

While some Brits are complaining about the jackpot, people around the world are lining up for their chance to win the life-altering prize. Even in countries where the game is not offered EuroMillions lottery tickets are available for purchase online.

Saturday's winning UK Lotto numbers were 13, 18, 21, 30, 50, and 54, with bonus ball number 20. The next drawing will be held on Wednesday evening.

Friday's winning EuroMillions numbers were 7, 18, 19, 32, and 48, with Lucky Star numbers 3 and 7. The next drawing will be held on Tuesday evening.

For the sanity and well-being of the UK's lottery players, let's hope both games have jackpot winners.

Lottery Post Staff

Comments

Bleudog101

Those Brits would have lost their bloody minds had they had to endure Powerball when it went to $1.6 Billion here.

Raven62's avatarRaven62

What would they say or do if the Odds went to: 1 in 258,890,850 or 1 in 292,201,338?

noise-gate

Remember that scene in " Return of the Jedi " where luke kills Jabbar's rancor beast? Jabbar declared " this is an outrage!"  Luke was  sorry he had to kill it. Someone seems sorry that the jackpot rolled.

bigbuckswede

The key to this article is the phrase "british media"  if you know what that stands for, it would never have gotten to be an article here on LP.  Every lottery have people who complaints.

stevebfd

This is probably crap churned up by The Daily Star and Daily Express which coincidentally are owned by Dirty Desmond who also owns The Health Lottery a rival to The National Lottery.

Groppo's avatarGroppo

Quote: Originally posted by Raven62 on Oct 2, 2017

What would they say or do if the Odds went to: 1 in 258,890,850 or 1 in 292,201,338?

.

Probably, something like:

Oh, but that's atrocious then, isn't it?

(They most always add "isn't it" at the end of such comments. At least that's what I've noticed
after having watched many many car/motorcycle accident videos. And then, if they get back up
off the ground,
they'll make a comment, many times, with an appended "isn't it?", or "doesn't it", etc) 

Some of those people are so doggone funny, especially at times when they get upset at someone.
They'll say stuff like what I won't repeat here.

But I think Russia holds the title of "World's Car Accident King". Their videos are unreal. It's like they have no traffic laws or vehicle brakes to go along with them.

Soledad

They're always like that. That's just the way they are. I'm the same way. Lol

HaveABall's avatarHaveABall

I can certainly understand the frustration of seeing the game a long time gambler's been devoted to become a game that has a jackpot win ... only every few months, instead of every few weeks.  [It's painful to stop a long-time gambling habit/commitment when the game that met your objectives is suddenly taken away, with no plans to ever replace those acceptable odds of winning again.]

Anyhow, I presume those devoted players will soon stop their gambling, since the odds game they liked is gone/no longer exists and won't be getting replaced with a similar odds game of a different name ... ever.  Bummer, their vivid dream of winning a regularly awarded jackpot is over.

Sad

sully16's avatarsully16

The eventual winner will not be angry.  Wink

jjtheprince14

Allow people from the US, especially in California or the East coast to buy tickets online for their games lol.

Then they’ll get to complain about jackpots never, ever rolling and it being way too easy for winners to win.

MillionsWanted's avatarMillionsWanted

They are correct. It's better with one, two or three winners every week, than one winner every ten or twenty weeks who wins a massive amount of money.

End of comments
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