The biggest lottery jackpot ever may be won tonight

Tonight’s Euromillions draw is bound to be an exciting one for lottery players, as the jackpot is currently the biggest that the UK has ever seen.

At a whopping £184 million this is a huge sum of money, and because of how Euromillions works, it has to be won very soon.

Usually when a jackpot is unclaimed, the amount moves on to the next draw - this is called a lottery rollover. However, Euromillions rules state that when a jackpot reaches €220 million, no more money can be added and the jackpot must be won in 5 draws.

With 1 in 139 million odds of hitting the jackpot, Euromillions is far from the easiest UK lottery to win. Because of how unlikely it is that there will be a winner, if nobody is lucky enough to pick the winning numbers then the jackpot will be awarded to players who have the most amount of matching numbers. 

Usually, these “must be won” rules mean that there are a higher number of winners, which means the prize will be shared. I’m sure the winning players won’t feel too sore about sharing £184 million with a few other people.

Whilst this is a staggering amount of money to win, the fact that we are writing this article alongside dozens of other publications raises an interesting point about way The National Lottery gets a free ticket from the media and general public.

A massive jackpot up for grabs is undeniably interesting to the public, however in servicing this public interest, websites and newspapers that usually take an anti-gambling stance are currently providing massive promotion for one of the biggest gambling operators in the UK.

If a bingo or casino site wanted to have their site promoted by the BBC or The Sun, it would have to pay out thousands in advertising and marketing costs. However, as the general public sees The National Lottery as a national institution (with 33% not considering the lottery gambling at all), Camelot get to enjoy free promotion and little repercussion for convincing millions to gamble, especially when the odds of winning are just as slim even when the jackpot is so large.