End in Sight to Irish Lotto Madness?

Ireland’s National Lottery jackpot has not been won for over six months, when is it going to end?

The big prize was last won on 5th June, marking the longest period on record that the top prize has not been won.

For 55 five consecutive draws the jackpot has rolled over, reaching a now-capped €19million.

Previously the longest span in which the jackpot was not won was 22 draws, ending in April this year when a family in County Kilkenny won the €12.7 million jackpot.

The winless streak has caused controversy, with questions being asked as to how this has happened.

On Wednesday 15th December, Andrew Algeo, chief executive of Premier Lotteries, informed the committee that approval for the introduction of a must-win game is being sought.

The proposal is currently being considered by the regulator Carol Boate.

She told the committee: "I want to make sure it is correctly and appropriately described in the game rules and we also check for the impact on the risk of the game to players."

A new must-win jackpot for the Irish Lottery could operate similarly to the UK’s National Lottery, where if the jackpot has not been won for more than five consecutive draws then the big prize is shared among the next, lower tier of winners.

Ms Boate explained that the current run is "unusual in the history of the game but it is not unusual in the history of lotteries."

"Statistically unlikely events are part of the nature of games of chance and lotteries.

"I can assure the public that the Lotto game is operating in line with the game rules and there are no regulatory issues."

According to Prof. Brien Nolan of Dublin City University's School of Mathematical Sciences, the odds of this consecutive run of jackpotless draws occurring is roughly 1 in 850.

Speaking to BBC NI, he said, "There's been a remarkable sequence of bad luck - I think essentially that's all it is, there's nothing more to it."

Prof. Nolan went on to say that the odds of someone winning the lottery, or the jackpot being won during a specific draw, do not change. Explaining that, "the fact that when the draw takes place those balls have no idea there hasn't been a jackpot winner for the last six months".

"What happened yesterday or last week or over the last six months is irrelevant."

When it was launched back in 1988, the Irish Lottery had 36 numbers to choose from but over the years that number has increased to 47.

In November, Fine Gael TD Bernard Durkan warned that the public was losing faith that the jackpot was winnable, remarking that the odds appeared, "so remote that punters must be thinking Shergar would have a better chance at winning Squid Game".

He called for a "full investigation and audit" into why the jackpot had not been won and recommended that removing a couple of balls from the draw would increase the chances of someone finally winning the jackpot, stating that he believes a system that allows 50 rollovers to occur to be “flawed”.

"We need to see a long-term plan to ensure this does not continue into the future," he added.

He is open to the idea of a must-win version of the game modelled on the UK National Lottery.

A National Lottery spokesperson said that because the jackpot is now capped, the funds "that would usually go to the jackpot are instead distributed to the next prize tier at which there is a winner".

This means that 218 lotto players who matched five balls, or five balls and the bonus number, "have shared over €18m (£15.3m) in additional prize money due to the jackpot prize roll down".