Frequently Asked Questions about UK National Lottery Rollovers

• What is a rollover ?
  This is a draw following a draw where the jackpot prize pool wasn't won. It's a common mistake to call that previous draw a "rollover", but in fact it's just a draw where the jackpot prize was rolled over to the next draw.

• Where does the previous draw's unwon jackpot prize pool get added to during a rollover ?
  It is mainly added to the jackpot prize pool of the rollover. However, from draw 1856 onwards, £1m * the number of consecutive rollovers is put aside to fund a set of an additional set of rubbish £20,000 raffle prizes (so that's 100 prizes for a single rollover, 150 for a double rollover etc.), though this dubious practice is to stop from 22nd November 2014 onwards.

• How many consecutive rollovers can there be ?
  Camelot have imposed a limit of 4 consecutive rollovers i.e. up to a maximum of 4 consecutive draws can receive the unwon jackpot prize pool from the previous draw. The terms "single rollover", "double rollover", "triple rollover" and "quadruple rollover" are typically used to indicate the four possible scenarios.

• What happens if there's a fifth consecutive draw with an unwon jackpot prize pool ?
  The jackpot prize pool of that fifth draw (including the rollover amount from the previous draw) is shared amongst the 5+bonus winners of that fifth draw or amongst the 5-match winners of the fifth draw if there no such 5+bonus winners.

• When did the first single rollover take place ?
  The 4th UK National Lottery draw on Saturday 10th December 1994 was the first ever single rollover. £6,906,572 was rolled over from the previous draw to make a jackpot prize pool of £17,880,003, which was won by a single person (who tried to remain anonymous but was hunted down by the press).

• When did the first double rollover take place ?
  This wasn't until the 60th lottery draw on Saturday 6th January 1996, where a rollover amount of £23,966,033 resulted in an all-time record jackpot prize pool of £42,008,610, which was shared amongst 3 winners.

• When did the first triple rollover take place ?
  This took a very long time indeed to turn up - almost a decade in fact. It finally made an appearance in the 880th draw on Saturday 29th May 2004. There were 6 jackpot winners of that draw, each picking up £3,693,086.

• When did the first quadruple rollover take place ?
  18 years into the lottery's life, the first quadruple rollover took place on the 1750th draw on Saturday 29th September 2012. There were 5 jackpot winners of that draw, each receiving £3,909,990. Note that it wasn't until early 2011 that Camelot decided to change the rollover rules to actually allow for a quadruple rollover (prior to that, a triple rollover was the limit).

• What happens if a rollover and a Super Draw are scheduled for the same draw ?
  Camelot used to "absorb" the rollover amount into the Super Draw amount if it was smaller and cancel the Super Draw if it the rollover amount was bigger than the Super Draw amount. However, from the 42nd Super Draw (Saturday 8th January 2000) onwards, the rollover amount is now added to the Super Draw amount regardless of their relative sizes. It should truly now be called a "rollover Super Draw" because of the combined jackpot prize pool.

• When was the first Wednesday rollover ?
  Surprisingly, it was the 22nd Wednesday draw (draw 159 in all) on Wednesday 2nd July 1997 and the jackpot prize pool of £14,378,924 was shared between two winners.

• What's the record ticket sales for a rollover ?
  The first double rollover (detailed above) had all-time record ticket sales of £127,824,795. The highest ticket sales for a single rollover were £86,753,064 for draw 62 on Saturday 20th January 1996, although the jackpot prize pool of £23,851,380 wasn't won and rolled over !

• What's the highest/lowest/average rollover ?
  That info is maintained automatically elsewhere - go back to the Rollovers index page and select the appropriate page.

• So what's wrong with rollovers then ?
  The obvious two flaws are:
  1. The unwon jackpot prize pool only rolls over to jackpot prize pool of the following draw, whereas I think it should roll over to the total prize pool (i.e. to all the variable prize tiers).
  2. There is a limit of 4 consecutive rollovers. There is no logic to this limit at all, except perhaps to stop huge syndicates buying all 14 million ticket combinations in the hope of making a profit ! I would like to see unlimited rollovers because triple and quadruple rollovers are already pretty rare.

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