Lotto Website Crashes Ahead Of Record Jackpot

The National Lottery website crashed because too many punters tried to buy a ticket to win the biggest ever jackpot of £50.4m.

Operator Camelot said it sold about 200 tickets a second in the hour before ticket sales closed at 7.30pm.

But many people trying to buy online were greeted by a message saying the website was "temporarily unavailable" because it was "extremely busy".

The winning numbers were 8, 30, 40, 50, 54, 57, and the bonus ball was 13.

It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) is not yet clear if anyone has won the main prize.

The main lottery prize rolled over in every draw since 18 November, after nobody chose the six numbers needed to win.

:: Powerball Lottery Jackpot Reaches $500m

There is now no limit on the number of rollovers after Camelot changed the game's rules last year.

The jackpot can roll until it reaches or exceeds £50m. If it is still not won, it rolls over one more time to the next draw.

If that produces no jackpot winner, the prize will be shared between those who get five numbers plus the bonus ball.

So if no one matches all six numbers on Wednesday, the jackpot will roll over to Saturday - when it must be won.

The biggest UK Lotto win was in 1995 when colleagues Mark Gardiner and Paul Maddison shared £22.5m, though Mr Gardiner later revealed the money did not bring him happiness.

The biggest single winner was Iris Jeffrey from Belfast, who scooped £20.1m.

Camelot introduced other controversial changes last year which experts claimed makes it three times harder to hit the jackpot.

There are now 59 balls in the mix instead of 49 and the chances of matching all six are down from one in 14 million to one in 45 million, while the chances of matching three balls drops from one in 57 to one in 97.

Dr Simon Goodwin, a senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham's School of Mathematics, told Sky News: "Players have less than one-third of the chance of winning the jackpot than previously.

"Similarly, the chances of matching five and the bonus ball have dropped by more than a third, and the probability of matching 5, 4 or 3 balls has dropped too."

Camelot said other "enhancements", such as the Millionaire Raffle, give players a better overall chance of winning.

The opportunity to win the biggest jackpot came as Camelot revealed the luckiest postcodes for previous winners.

The postcodes are ranked by the number of prize wins of £50,000 or more since the National Lottery began.

The statistics show that the RM (LSE: RM.L - news) postcode, which includes Romford, Dagenham, Hornchurch, Grays and Purfleet, comes out top.

In second place is Sunderland (SR), followed by local neighbour Newcastle Upon Tyne (NE). The full list can be seen at the end of this article.

The top 10 lucky postcodes are:

1. RM – Romford

2. SR – Sunderland

3. NE – Newcastle Upon Tyne

4. L – Liverpool

5. EN – Enfield

6. WA – Warrington

7. BR – Bromley

8. WV – Wolverhampton

9. DA – Dartford

10. DD - Dundee