THE NATIONAL LOTTERY has said that its “enhanced format” will take effect from next month.

Last month, the National Lottery announced that it would be making one of the biggest changes to the Irish Lotto in years, cutting the number of balls from 47 to 45.

This means numbers 46 and 47 have been effectively being retired from the game.

This reverses a change that had been introduced in 2015, when the number of balls increased from 45 to 47.

The other big change is a brand-new Monday night draw.

The number of balls in the Lotto will reduce to 45 from Saturday, 5 September.

A spokesperson said this will improve the odds of winning across every prize tier.

The odds of winning the Lotto jackpot or top prize in each draw will improve – by a rather miniscule amount – from one in 10.7 million to one in 8.1 million. 

Lottery bosses say the changes are designed to improve players’ chances of winning while creating more jackpot winners.

Meanwhile, the Lotto Plus Two top prize will increase from €250,000 to €1 million, creating even more opportunities to make new millionaires. 

Combined with the existing €1 million Lotto Plus One prize, players who purchase Lotto Plus will now have three separate opportunities to become millionaires with every draw.

The Lotto jackpot cap meanwhile will reduce from €19.06 million to €16 million, and once the cap is reached, the existing “Must Be Won” roll-down mechanism will still apply after the fifth draw at the limit.

And one element that is disappearing entirely is the Lotto Raffle, which will no longer form part of the game under the new format.

Elsewhere, the new Monday draw will take place for the first time on 7 September.

From this date, Lotto draws will take place every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.

Each draw will continue to be livestreamed at 7.55pm on www.lottery.ie and broadcast before the RTÉ Nine O’Clock News on RTÉ One. 

Meanwhile, there are no changes to the price to play either Lotto or the Lotto Plus games.