People urged to buy lottery tickets early for chance to win £57.8 million jackpot

Lotto organisers expect to be selling more than 400 tickets per second in the last hour before sales close

Saturday's prize exceeds the previous highest jackpot of £42 million in 1996 (PA)

People have been urged to buy online lottery tickets early to be in with a chance of winning the biggest Lotto jackpot ever.

A record-breaking prize of £57.8 million has drawn an “unprecedented” level of interest, said National Lottery operator Camelot.

The huge sum has built up after a total of 14 rollovers where no player has managed to match the six numbers needed to win.

The jackpot must be won or shared out on Saturday and there are fears people trying to buy last-minute tickets may not be able to after the National Lottery website crashed earlier this week.

A last-minute burst of people trying to buy tickets online for the £50.4 million draw on Wednesday, which had no winners, caused the website to crash for around 10 minutes.

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 at 7.30pm.

The jackpot comes after the National Lottery introduced sweeping changes to its Lotto.

New rules, which apply when a jackpot passes £50 million, mean that if no players match all six numbers the prize will be shared between winners in the next tier - most likely those who match five main numbers and the bonus ball.

Saturday's prize exceeds the previous highest jackpot of £42 million in 1996.

Additional reporting by Associated Press