Punters urged to snap up Lottery jackpot tickets early

National Lottery operator Camelot is urging people to buy tickets early to be in with a chance of winning a share of £100 million over the next two nights.

As well as the biggest Lotto jackpot ever - £57.8 million - tomorrow, £44 million is up for grabs in the EuroMillions tonight, a combined total of £101 million, which Camelot says has led to an "unprecedented" level of interest.

There are fears people trying to buy last-minute tickets online might not be able to after the National Lottery website crashed on Wednesday night.

A last-minute flurry of people trying to buy tickets online for the £50.4 million draw - which had no winners - caused the website to crash for about 10 minutes.

But Camelot said it would do everything it could to ensure people could buy tickets and reminded people they could buy tickets from 37,000 retailers as well as online.

A Camelot spokesman said: "It was phenomenally busy so we would advise players to buy their tickets early to avoid disappointment. We expect the draw to be one of the most popular ever.

"There has been an unprecedented amount of excitement because some people are going to be considerably richer in the next two days."

Camelot expects to be selling more than 400 tickets per second in the last hour before sales close on 7.30pm.

And after 14 rollovers, new rules stipulate Saturday's prize must be won or shared out.

The new rules, which come into play when a jackpot passes £50 million, dictate that if no players match all six numbers the prize will be shared between winners in the next tier where there is at least one winner - most likely those who have just five main numbers and the bonus ball.

The run of rollovers follows the number of balls in the draw increasing from 49 to 59 in October, reducing the odds on a player's six numbers coming up from around one in 14 million to one in 45 million.

Saturday's prize eclipses the previous highest jackpot of £42 million shared by three winners in 1996.