It is said that even a dead racehorse Shergar is more likely than ordinary people to win the Irish National Lottery.
For six months, the first prize has not yet been won, which prompted calls for investigations to reduce the number of balls to increase the chances of winning, and a parliamentary investigation will be conducted on Wednesday.
Now, the operator of the Irish National Lottery is seeking regulatory approval to end the no-winner rolling period of the marathon in a “must win the draw” to ensure that such a long waiting time for winning will not be repeated.
In the British National Lottery, if No one matches six numbers in the first five draws, and the prize is shared by all other players who match two or more numbers.
The change in Irish methods was triggered by increasing controversy due to the lack of winners of the highest award since June and the intervention of a senior politician whose call for an investigation aroused the public’s imagination.
Fine Gael TD (Member of Parliament) Bernard Durkan said that these changes “seem to be too far away, and bettors must think Shergar has a better chance of winning the squid race”, referring to the kidnapped horse race and popular Netflix show in 1983. .
“I’m not saying anything strange happened, but this is the longest game in the history of the game, so we need some comfort,” he added.
The National Lottery Office stated that the weekly rollover was “unprecedented” but pointed out that since September, the jackpot has been capped at 19 million euros (16.2 million pounds), and the additional ticket sales revenue is gradually declining to the next level of bonuses. .
Andrew Algeo, the chief executive of Premier Lotteries Ireland, who runs the business, said that this jackpot still has no winners “very unusual.”
He said: “Given the tickets purchased since the beginning of June, chances are like rolling the dice 37 times without the number 6.”
The regulator Carol Boate was inquired in detail by the Oireachtas (Irish Legislature) Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform and the Taoist Parliament.
When asked whether it was a machine issue or other lotteries have a must-win draw, she told the committee that the draw is determined by mechanical machines similar to those used in the UK and other parts of the world, and explained the British jackpot rollover system.
“This will be a known risk and this may happen,” Bot said of Ireland’s six-month jackpot extension. She added that he didn’t know why the winning draw was never introduced when redesigning the game in 2015, but the November request was the first she knew.
When the Irish National Lottery was launched in 1988, there were 36 balls. It was changed to 39 times in 1992, 42 times in 1994, 45 times in 2006, and 47 times in 2015.
This is still very good compared to other lotteries, including the 59 balls in the UK and EuroMillions, where players choose 5 balls from a pool of 50 main numbers and two lucky stars from a pool of 12 separate numbers. .
Bot’s deputy, Derek Donohoe, said that when the Irish National Lottery was “operating according to the rules of the game”, an “unprecedented rollover” of the first prize was taking place and insisted that he had determined that there were “no regulatory issues”.
