A Jackpot draw is usually a very exciting moment. You can win thousands of dollars, or perhaps even end up as a millionaire! Yet the opposite could happen as well: no winner at all, and no happy faces of a new rich person. This is called a ‘lottery rollover’. What actually happens with the money?
What is a Rollover?
Rollovers are part of a normal lottery game. It’s simply impossible that there is a Jackpot hit every single time. The truth is that the money stays in the Jackpot most of the time. The funds that might have gone to the winner are added to the Jackpot. This is also the case for the ticket sales. So the so-called rollover makes the lottery game even more exciting next time, because there is more money in the Jackpot.
Different names
Interestingly enough, every rollover gets a name. For example, one time no Jackpot hit is called a ‘single rollover’, the second time is known as a ‘double rollover’ and the third time a ‘triple rollover’. You could go on with this for quite a long time, since not every lottery uses a maximum amount of rollovers. A ‘septendecuple rollover’ (17 times) or a ‘vigintuple’ (20 times) rollover. Although these high numbers are no exception, these names aren’t used very often. For players it’s more easy if the lottery uses ‘5x rollover’ or ‘13x rollover’ for example.
Good news for the lottery
The fact that there is no Jackpot hit is actually good for the lottery. With a lot of money to win, more people want to buy tickets. Sometimes the amount of money in Jackpot is a few million dollars or euro’s. Obviously everyone wants to take a chance! Not every lottery uses the same Jackpot rules though. Sometimes the amount of Jackpot money has a limit, which is also the case for roll overs. For example, Lotto used a limit on roll overs in the past, but this has disappeared in 2015. However, there is a new rule that you cannot win more than 50 million pounds. Winners probably wouldn’t complain though! After reaching 50 million pounds, there is only one roll over left. Is there still no hit? Then the money of the Jackpot ends up in the next prize tier.
Lottery rollovers can take a long time. For example, it took from November 2015 to January 2016 before a Jackpot from Lotto finally fell. Usually it takes less than a year before the Jackpot falls, but you certainly need a lot of patience! With every roll over, the interest in the lottery game grows. If there’s no hit, perhaps next week will. Rollovers are a successful strategy of many lotteries. The past has shown that thousands of extra tickets are sold when the Jackpot has reached a peak. At the beginning of 2016, Lotto broke all records with a ticket sale of 95 million pounds for a Jackpot of 66 million! Eventually two lucky players from Scotland and a person living in Worcester had to share their big win.
Endless rollovers
A rollover of 15 times is the absolute record of Lotto. This number hasn’t been reached yet, but the prize money is 22 million pounds at the moment. Lotto is not the only lottery where you have to wait a long time before there’s a Jackpot hit. EuroMillions almost reached the Lotto record when it had a rollover of 14 times a while back. The wait was definitely worth it, because two persons from Scotland won 185 million euros! Another top prize was worth 190 million dollars and has made two persons from Suffolk very happy millionaires.