It’s been announced that a UK EuroMillions ticket-holder has won more than £76m, but has yet to claim the prize.
The draw took place last Friday, but no one has yet come forward. The winning numbers are 5, 15, 17, 37 and 44, the Lucky Stars are 7 and 11. The winner matched all of these numbers and is therefore in line for the massive payout once they make themselves known.
Sold somewhere in the UK
Camelot Group, which operates the EuroMillions lottery, has confirmed the ticket was purchased somewhere in the UK, but cannot give any details about the location of the shop where it was bought until two weeks after the draw.
The company has a specific protocol for prizes over £50,000, which is set in place to prevent fraud and protect winners’ privacy. The exact value of the ticket is £76,369,806.80, and was bought in the UK on the day of the draw itself: Friday, 2 November.
A senior winners’ advisor at the National Lottery, Andy Carter, said the winning ticket-holder most likely has no idea that they are in line for such a big windfall, but he has urged the public to find their tickets and double check the numbers.
“Instead of enjoying their massive £76m windfall, the lucky ticket-holder has already let a week slip by and may be going about their everyday routine completely unaware of their amazing change of fortune,” Carter said.
Back in 2010, a jackpot of £113m was also not claimed immediately, with papers speculating that the winner was losing out on up to £8,500 a day in interest. Despite multiple people coming forward, it was finally claimed on day 12 with the winner choosing to remain anonymous.
In-store purchase
The winning ticket was bought in person, not online, so people are being urged to hunt down their pink receipts and double-check their numbers for the week. It is the third jackpot win in the UK this year, with £77m paid out to an anonymous player in February while another anonymous winner scooped the £121 million jackpot in April.
Carter and his team are eagerly awaiting the player to come forward, saying: “We have the champagne on ice and our fingers crossed that the lucky winner comes forward to claim their win soon.”
Although the £76m prize at stake will be life-changing for the winner, it is not the biggest jackpot to have been generated by EuroMillions. In the past, winners have claimed €190m prizes that have been won three times: once in Spain, another in Portugal and the third in England.
A nine-country partnership
EuroMillions is a joint lottery run by national operators in nine participating countries. The wide reach of the game leads to it generating some of the largest lottery jackpots in Europe. The game first started in 2004 when operators in France, Spain and the UK came together to create the game, but it has grown since then.
Players select five numbers and two Lucky Stars, with the odds on matching every number being around 1 in 116,531,800 because all seven numbers are needed to win the jackpot. The game is also popular on betting sites, where punters bet on the outcome of the draw as opposed to participating in the game itself.
