From top: Fine Gael’s Bernard Durkan: Ronan Collins presenting the National Lottery in the early 1990s
This afternoon.
Via RTÉ News
A Fine Gael TD has called on the operator of the National Lottery to make the draw more “winnable”.
Deputy Bernard Durkan said there should be an investigation after no winner of the top lotto jackpot in almost six months.
The twice weekly National Lottery draw has rolled over 46 times since it was last won on 6 June.
Mr Durkan said: “This didn’t happen in Ronan Collins’ day. The jackpot has been stuck on €19m since September. What’s going on?
“We need a full investigation and audit into the draw.”
He added: “I’m not saying anything odd has happened, but it’s the longest run in the history of the game so we need a bit of reassurance.”
Fine Gael TD calls for Lotto to be more ‘winnable’ (RTÉ)
RollingNews/RTÉ
oh but I am Bernard
something VERY ropey going down
a 46x rollover?
afaik the world record is held by the famous US Powerball draw back in 2016 which rolled a mere 19x before someone finally scored $1,586,400,000 (yeah that’s $1.5Bn)
There are just too many numbers. I calculated the odds of winning a while back when I heard how long it was since it was won and they’re insane.
If you were pulling a con you wouldn’t do it in a way that was so visible. There’s bound to be an impact on sales as the jackpot has been capped for a good while now and the longer this goes on the more people will feel there’s no chance in winning (which there basically isn’t).
At least they didn’t put a bleedin’ cap on the winnings!
It should be way over the current €19m at this point
The cap is there for a reason.
Probably to ensure no one tries to ‘buy’ the lotto as before:
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/how-a-secret-syndicate-managed-to-buy-the-lotto-35981173.html
They use the money beyond the cap to make the other prizes bigger they don’t keep it. 19million is plenty to be fair if it was actually won.
we don’t own the national lottery any more, so moan all you want durkan, – it don’t mean jack.
It is still regulated.
And he was a TD on the government side of the Dáil when it was sold by them to the private company.
Exactly this
i did not know this.
what an unbelievable spanner is bernard durkan
Courtesy of Brendan Howlin, Labour.
They should feed tiny winning number balls to a FG or FF politician, then have them enter a “Running Man” scenario where lucky audience members get chosen to kill them live on TV and then use a knife to open their stomach to reveal the winning numbers. Any takers?? That’s TV ratings gold right there. Family fun viewing.
May the odds be ever in your favour.
+1
Are fewer people doing the lotto these days?
It’s more expensive and harder to win.
Harder to win + fewer entries = more rollovers.
It won’t rollover next draw.That’ll put a stop to any audit.
Does Durkan ever get bored of embarrassing himself?
His handlers obviously had a day off – in fairness, it could’ve been worse …
“I have never agreed with Premier Lotteries Ireland’s decision to increase the number of balls to 47. I’m old enough to remember 1986 when there were 36 balls and that’s how it should have stayed.” – An Post made three increases to the number of balls, PLI made one.
Ask Bernard about his relationship with tobacco lobbyists and see what he says.