British Player Wins Euromillions
Last Updated: Friday 28th February 2014, 16:21
A single lottery player has scooped the largest Euromillions prize ever to be won by someone living in the UK - a sum of around £35.4 million. However, the chances are that the winner isn't celebrating their good fortune just yet, because - at the time of writing this news report - nobody had yet claimed the prize. This suggests that the winner probably isn't yet aware that they have won a bigger Euromillions prize than any other British player.
A spokesman for Camelot, the company that runs Euromillions for British players, said: "It is the largest jackpot won by a British person. It's not unusual for people not to check their tickets until the next day, so the person may not be aware yet. It's very exciting - someone out there is sitting on a fortune."
As with other Camelot-run lottery games, the winner has up to 180 days to claim their prize. If they don't claim before this deadline, their prize is forfeited and the money added to the National Lottery's Good Cause fund instead.
Commentators have suggested that the £35.4 million ticket may have been won by a syndicate, and the winner(s) could therefore discover their good fortune early this week as they return to work.
For those of you who bought a Euromillions ticket for the draw on Friday 10 August, it may be sensible to double check your tickets. The winning main numbers were 23, 40, 42, 43 and 49 and the Lucky Star numbers were 2 and 6. The jackpot prize was £35,425,412, thanks to three rollovers.
Until now, the biggest Euromillions prize won a British player was worth £16,752,144. This was won by Marion Richardson in April 2004. The jackpot won on Friday is worth more than twice that amount, and puts Britain back on the Euromillions map in great style.