Lucky pair share the UK’s biggest ever £66m Lotto jackpot

US jackpot remains unclaimed and soars to £895m

A record £66 million Lotto jackpot will be shared between two British winners, while a rollover in the US is expected to send next week’s Powerball prize fund soaring to a staggering $1.3 billion.

Each lucky UK winner will receive £33,035,323, scooping their share of the biggest ever jackpot.

However, just hours after Camelot revealed there were two winning tickets, officials for the US’s version of the Lotto, the Powerball, announced their $949.8m (£654m) jackpot had gone unclaimed.

It means the prize fund is expected to rocket to $1.3bn (£895m) for next Wednesday’s draw. By comparison, the next Lotto draw on Wednesday will be reset to £2.4m.

The US jackpot was first set at $40m (£27m) on November 4. The odds of matching all six Powerball numbers are one in 292.2 million.

The UK’s Lotto

passed

the £ 50m cap on Wednesday and Saturday’s £66m fund, which had amassed after 14 rollovers, would have been shared among those tickets matching five main numbers and the bonus ball, had there been no winners this week.

Instead, those five ticket-holders each win £64,426.

The 259 tickets which matched five main numbers each win £1,309 while 17,695 matched four numbers to win £123. The main draw numbers were 26, 27, 46, 47, 52 and 58 and the bonus number was 48.

A National Lottery spokesman said: “What an amazing way to start off the new year. Two players shared tonight’s biggest-ever Lotto jackpot, and each ticket-holder will be starting 2016 £33m richer.

“We urge all our players to check their tickets and, of course, we have plenty of Champagne on ice ready to welcome these winners into the National Lottery millionaires club.”

The recent run of rollovers follows the number of balls in the draw increasing from 49 to 59 in October, reducing the odds on a player’s six numbers coming up from around one in 14m to one in 45m.

Saturday’s top prize eclipsed the previous highest jackpot of £42m which was shared by three winners in 1996.

You have to be in it to win it: last minute Lotto ticket purchasers in Glasgow on Saturday.