REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE National Lottery will appear before the Oireachtas finance committee next Wednesday after the top prize was not won, once again, in last night’s draw.

Last night’s Lotto was the 53rd consecutive draw where no one claimed the jackpot. 

The top prize has been capped at €19.06 million since early October with additional funds that would have usually gone to the jackpot passed down to the next prize tier.

Under Lotto rules, the jackpot is capped once it exceeds the previous record – which was €18.96 million in 2008.

Representatives of the Regulator of the National Lottery will also appear before the finance committee next Wednesday. The watchdog is an independent office which oversees the operation of the game.

Fine Gael TD Bernard Durkan, who is on the finance committee, said he has a series of questions to ask those who will appear at Leinster House next week.

“The time has come for some pertinent questions. A lot can happen in six months. Dublin footballers’ unbeaten run came to an end, a summer heatwave came and went, Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, Omicron replaced Delta, Barbados became a Republic and Wally the Walrus visited our shores and left – without winning the Lotto jackpot like the rest of us,” the Kildare North TD said.

“Hopefully the answers will be more enlightening than the unsuccessful six months and 53 draws since June 9 with no jackpot winners,” Durkan concluded.

Durkan has taken a deep interest in the Lotto’s winless run in recent weeks. Last month he called for two balls to be removed from the Lotto draw drum and declared that the unsuccessful streak would have “never happened in Ronan Collins’ day”.

The number of balls in the drum has increased several times since the Lotto was established in 1986. Originally, 36 numbers were in the mix and players’ odds of matching all six were 1,974,792 to one. 

The number of balls now stands at 47 and the odds of winning now stand at almost 11 million to one.

Eamonn Toland of TheMathsTutor.ie previously told The Journal that Durkan’s plan to remove two balls from the drum would improve the odds of winning the top prize by over 20%.

“Durkan is right when he says reducing the numbers gives you better odds. If you were to take five balls out you’re dropping the odds by 50%,” he noted.