Cork Lotto ticket wins €5.66m in first jackpot since number change

An Irish National Lottery ticket bought at Eason in Mahon Point Shopping Centre, Cork, won the €5,664,896 Lotto jackpot in the Wednesday, 7 October draw. The Lottery’s results confirm one jackpot winner, while reports published on Friday, 9 October said the ticket holder had not yet come forward. Anyone who bought a ticket there for Wednesday’s draw has been urged to check it.

The winning Quick Pick ticket was purchased on Tuesday, 6 October, according to the Irish Examiner’s account of confirmation from the National Lottery. The winning numbers were 3, 17, 26, 29, 37 and 42, with 38 as the bonus number. The draw result establishes that a ticket won; the published reports do not identify its owner.

Where the €5,664,896 Lotto ticket was sold

Eason’s store at Mahon Point Shopping Centre sold the winning ticket, the Irish Examiner, RTÉ and The Southern Star reported. National Lottery spokesperson Sarah Orr asked customers who bought a ticket there for the Wednesday draw to check it. The appeal concerns a ticket bought at that store for that draw, rather than every Lotto ticket purchased in Cork.

Orr advised the winner to sign the back of the ticket, keep it safe and contact the National Lottery Prize Claims team on 1800 666 222, according to RTÉ. The Southern Star and Irish Examiner reported on Friday that the winner had not contacted Lottery headquarters. Those reports do not establish whether the ticket holder has made contact since then, and they give no payout date.

The numbers and other prizes in the 7 October draw

The National Lottery’s published results list a single winner of the €5,664,896 Lotto jackpot. They also say more than 57,000 players won prizes across the Lotto and Lotto Plus draws that night. The jackpot is a specific prize in the main Lotto draw; the wider count includes winners of other prize tiers and the separate Lotto Plus games.

The same results show no winner of the €1 million top prize in either Lotto Plus 1 or Lotto Plus 2 on 7 October. In the main Lotto draw, 13 tickets matched five numbers without the bonus and won €1,441 each. Those figures distinguish the sole jackpot-winning ticket from the many other winning tickets recorded for the evening.

The jackpot had gone unclaimed in the preceding two draws listed by the Lottery. Its results show no jackpot winner on Monday, 5 October, when the prize was €5,385,204, or on Saturday, 3 October, when it was €5,229,412. Wednesday’s €5,664,896 win ended that run of draws without a jackpot winner.

First jackpot win after the Lotto number change

RTÉ reported that Wednesday’s jackpot was the first since numbers 46 and 47 were removed from Lotto, reducing the pool from 47 numbers to 45. The National Lottery announced changes to Lotto and Lotto Plus in July, and The Southern Star reported that they took effect in early September. The ticket was therefore bought after the change, although the win itself does not show how often jackpots will be won in future.

According to RTÉ, the odds of winning the jackpot or top prize improved from about one in 10.7 million to one in 8.1 million after the smaller number pool was introduced. Those are odds for a ticket, not a promise that a particular player will win. The confirmed outcome here is one jackpot winner in the 7 October draw; the available reports leave the winner’s identity and current claim status open.