WORLD
Euromillions: UK ticketholder wins record £161 million
Baku, July 13 (AZERTAC). A single British ticket holder has scooped the biggest ever lottery jackpot in Europe, winning a staggering £161 million in the Euromillions draw.
The ticket holder, who has not been identified, now becomes the 430th richest person in the country if they are not a member of a syndicate.
The winning numbers were 17, 19, 38, 42 and 45, and the Lucky Stars were 9 and 10, which authorities say had odds of 116 million to one.
National Lottery officials confirmed the winning sum of €185m (£161m), was the biggest ever lottery prize win in this country and throughout Europe.
It will push the previous biggest UK winner, an anonymous ticketholder who scooped £113m last October, into second place.
The winner will almost be better off than David and Victoria Beckham, with their fortune of £165m, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.
They are worth now more than Sir Keith Mills, the founder of the Air Miles and Nectar cards (£160m), Tamara Mellon, the founder of Jimmy Choo shoes, Ringo Starr, the former Beatle, (both with fortunes estimated at £150 million) and Sir Tim Rice, the lyricist who co-wrote the musicals Evita and The Lion King (£143m).
The exact amount to be claimed by the winner is £161,653,000.00 while two other UK-based lottery players also won £1.7 million after matching five numbers and one Lucky Star.
The top prize would earn £9,323 per day in interest, which equates to £3.4 million per year. If £161 million was stacked in £50 notes, it would be almost 1200 feet (365 metres) tall - almost four times the height of Big Ben.
The previous largest jackpot available in the UK was £126,059,632 in a EuroMillions draw in February 2006.
The top prize has been capped after a series of rollovers made it the largest ever in the UK.