An estimated 86,000 lotto tickets per hour will be bought around the country during peak times tonight as people line up for their – albeit minuscule - chance of a €16 million lotto win.
The jackpot is currently the third highest since the game began in 1988. If it exceeds €16.1 million, it becomes the second highest, a spokeswoman for the National Lottery confirmed.
The sum has been rolling over since March 10th, and includes two extra top-ups of €2 million added for St Patrick’s weekend and Easter.
Typical sales volumes for such a jackpot result in average sales of between 30 and 35 tickets per second sold for each of the 3,700 terminals in the country between 6pm and 7pm.
More than 10,000 people have now also registered to play National Lottery games online, the spokeswoman confirmed.
She said a third of all sales for this jackpot will fund sports, youth, health, culture, heritage and Irish language projects.
The biggest Lotto jackpot - €18.9 million - was won in 2008 by the Dan Morrissey syndicate from Carlow.
The largest so far year was €7,457,357, which was won in January by Michelle Ryan, from Athlone, Co Westmeath.