The winner of last night’s Euromillions was British and will take home the biggest haul ever in the history of the draw.
It is not known whether the lucky winner – who correctly predicted all five main numbers and two Lucky Stars in the draw – is an individual or a syndicate.
Either way, they have won an astonishing £161m, catapulting them into a league of millionaires, at 148 in the UK rich list.
Last night’s providential numbers were 19, 17, 42, 45, 38 and the Lucky Stars were 09 and 10.
The jackpot had been capped after a series of rollovers made it the largest ever in the UK.
A National Lottery spokesman said: “This is amazing news.
“We are absolutely delighted that a UK ticket holder has scooped the entire €185million jackpot, which at the current exchange rate is a massive £161 million.
“This is the biggest winner this country and Europe has ever seen and follows hot on the heels of the anonymous ticket-holder who last October scooped £113m.
“We’ve got the champagne on ice and look forward to welcoming the ticket-holder or holders into the National Lottery millionaires’ club.”
The series of rollovers has generated another £100 million to be donated to charitable causes
The exact amount to be claimed by tonight’s winner is £161,653,000 while two other UK-based lottery players won £1.7 million after matching five numbers and one Lucky Star.
The top prize would earn £4.8million per year in interest in an account paying just three per cent. That figure equates to £13,232 per day or £551 every hour and £9.20 in a minute.
If £161 million was stacked in £50 notes, it would be almost 365 metres tall – almost four times the height of Big Ben.
The fortune would buy a penthouse overlooking London's Hyde Park which was reportedly sold for £135 million earlier this year.
And with more than half their money to spare, they could secure the services of Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, whom Real Madrid bought from Manchester United for £80m.
Or, for an exclusive getaway, they could buy Private Island Paradise, a 37-acre island in the Central Bahamas for £47 million. The isle boasts a luxurious manor house with it's own light house, a club-style dining and entertainment building with top-of-the-range gym, a heliport and infinity pool.
The winner could also buy six £24,250,000 Bombardier Global Express XRS executive jets.
If the winner is a single person, they would be the biggest lottery winner in Europe.
The previous record holder was £128.3million scooped by a ticket-holder in Italy’s SuperEnalotto in 2009
Until tonight’s draw the largest lottery winner in the UK was an anonymous player who claimed £113 million in the EuroMillions in October last year.
Sales in last night’s jackpot had surpassed three million tickets per hour as players rushed to get their hands on a winning ticket.
The world’s largest non-syndicate lottery winners shared £244.3m ($390m) in March 2007 on the US game Mega Millions. The two winning ticket-holders were from New Jersey and Georgia.
The most valuable single ticket was a win of £228.6m on another US game –Powerball – in February 2006. However, the money had to be shared among the syndicate of eight colleagues from a Nebraska meat processing plant
