Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Three winners scoop EuroMillions

Three winners have won the EuroMillions lottery, sharing the £126m jackpot, UK National Lottery firm Camelot has said.

One ticket was bought in Portugal and the other two in France. The winning numbers were 9, 21, 30, 39 and 50, and the Lucky Star numbers were 1 and 3.

Some 1.4m UK ticketholders won prizes ranging ranging from £179,829 to £7.10.

Camelot, which runs the competition with operators in eight other countries, said sales had gone up by "1200% on a normal week".

The draw, which had rolled over for the past 11 weeks, had been estimated as £125m but Camelot said "exchange rate fluctuations" and the final calculations of ticket sales meant the jackpot came to £126m.

Lump sum

EuroMillions players had to match five main numbers from one to 50 plus two Lucky Star numbers from one to nine to win the jackpot.


A Camelot spokeswoman said: "There has been a record sales rush."

She added: "Over the last 12 weeks £15m has been raised good causes from EuroMillions alone."

The competition is being promoted in the UK by Chantelle Houghton, the recent winner of TV's Celebrity Big Brother.

Camelot said past jackpots in US lotteries had been higher than £125m, but the winners chose a reduced one-off lump sum payment instead of having the full amount paid in instalments.

The draw was also open to players in Austria, Belgium, France, the Republic of Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.

The top EuroMillions winner to date is Dolores McNamara, from Limerick, who scooped £79m last July.

The UK's top jackpot winner is Marion Richardson, from Gateshead, who won £16.7m on 9 April, 2004, two months after the game was launched.

Play Euro Millions With Better Odds and Mathematical System

French Man and Son Win Euro Millions Jackpot

19 September 2005

PARIS, France – As reported by Reuters: "A jobless 55-year-old Frenchman and one of his seven children shared a prize of 75.88 million euros Saturday after selecting combinations of the family's ages in the multi-nation Euro Millions lottery.

"The French lottery firm said the winning ticket in Friday's draw was bought in 'Cafe de l'Arrivee' -- the Arrival Pub -- at Franconville-la-Garenne in Val d'Oise, not far from Paris…"