THERE WAS NO winner last night of the €19 million Lotto jackpot prize, which has now rolled over on 47 occasions since it was last won on 6 June.

The jackpot prize is now capped at €19.06 million. Funds that would usually be added to the jackpot have instead been distributed to the next prize tiers, so two players on Wednesday won over €384,000 each.

Fine Gael TD Bernard Durkan last week called for an audit and investigation of the draw as the top jackpot has not been won in almost six months. 

Durkan said he was not saying “anything odd has happened”, but said he had never agreed with the decision to increase the number of balls to 47. 

“I’m old enough to remember 1988 when there were 36 balls and that’s how it should have stayed,” he said. 

He called on the operator of the Irish National Lottery, Premier Lotteries Ireland, to “drop a couple of balls as a mark of good faith”. 

“I’ll also be writing to Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath, whose department oversees this, to express my concern here and to get his views on the matter,” Durkan said.

“As part of the terms of the National Lottery licence, almost 30c from every €1 spent on National Lottery games is returned to the Exchequer to be utilised by Good Cause projects.”