MORE THAN two million Lottery slips are likely to be entered for tonight's record Lotto jackpot, which is heading for £6 million. Every workplace and household in the State is expected have an interest in the result.
According to a National Lottery spokeswoman, when the first £250,000 prize was won in 1987, lottery staff were so emotional they burst into tears. Staff are less easily moved by large sums of money nine years later, but the spokeswoman said the £6 million jackpot was still "something special".
The previous record jackpot of £4,744,563 was won in September by a man originally from Hong Kong who had moved to Tallaght. He was the 63rd Lotto millionaire.
If there is a single winner of the jackpot then he or she should not follow the example of a previous winner, a Dublin woman who kept her winning ticket in a biscuit box for three weeks before claiming her prize. Keeping a £6 million Lotto ticket in a biscuit box for three weeks will cost the winner some £17,000 in lost interest.
The best advice to tonight's prospective winner is to keep a cool head, stick the cheque on deposit - at an overnight rate of 5.25 per cent - and consider the options.
According to an Irish Times handy guide to investing £6 million, up to £100,000 can be put into a special savings account for two years while a further £50,000 can be placed in a special interest account for five years, tax deductible at 15 per cent and 10 per cent respectively.
An additional £120,000 could be turned into post office bonds for five years while a further £120,000 can be used to buy post office certificates. That leaves only £5.61 million to worry about, with which you can buy a big boat.
Older winners generally adopt a more conservative approach to their winnings, leaving 30 per cent liquid while investing the remainder in government stocks and equities.
Tonight's jackpot was criticised by Mr Shay Kinsella, the founder of the Share A Dream foundation which fulfils the wishes of children in Ireland fighting life-threatening illnesses and handicaps.
He said the decision by the National Lottery to add an additional £1 million to last weekend's jackpot was "very cruel and hard to comprehend" when his own organisation had been refused Lotto funding for the second successive year.
The lottery responded by saying it did not have responsibility for the disbursement of Lottery funds. "The £1 million added comes from the unclaimed prize fund," the spokeswoman said. "It's players' money and we have an obligation to return that to them."