GBP 35.4m lotto win still to be claimed

The British winner of a GBP 35.4m jackpot was last night still to claim their EuroMillions lottery prize.

It is the largest lottery payout in Britain, but it is thought that the ticket-holder probably isn’t even aware of his or her good fortune yet.

The draw, which saw the numbers 23, 40, 42, 43 and 49 and lucky star numbers 2 and 6 come up, was held on Friday night.

Camelot, which operates the British arm of the European lottery, said the winner, who scooped a grand total of GBP 35,425,412, has not yet come forward.

The massive payout was the result of the EuroMillions jackpot rolling over three times.

A Camelot spokesman said: „It is the largest jackpot won by a British person.

„It’s not unusual for people to not check their tickets until the next day, so the person may not be aware yet.“

The winner has 180 days to collect his or her prize. Camelot does not normally say where a winning ticket was bought unless it remains unclaimed for longer than 25 days.

The UK‘s first EuroMillions jackpot win of GBP 16,752,144.80 was by Marion Richardson from Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, in April 2004.

The biggest EuroMillions jackpot to date was GBP 77m, which was won by mother-of-six Dolores McNamara, of Limerick, Ireland, in July 2005.

However, in global terms, the payout pales into insignificance compared with other lottery winners.

Winners in the United States regularly pick up in excess of USD 100m, and in 2006 an eight-strong syndicate got lucky in America’s Powerball lottery, sharing the USD 365m (GBP 210m) jackpot between them – the biggest win in the game’s history.

The seven men and a woman, who worked at a meat plant in Lincoln, Nebraska, each picked up USD 15.5m (GBP 8.9m) after taxes as they chose to take the money in a lump sum.

The previous record for the same lottery prize was USD 363m (GBP 208m), shared between two tickets in 2000.

In Europe, the richest lottery is Spain’s El Gordo, the „Big One“, where whole towns compete to win the pot.

During 2005, the inhabitants of Vic in Catalonia scooped EUR 500m, the jackpot being shared amongst the 35,000-plus townsfolk.