Euromillions: Search for British player who has won entire £76m jackpot

National Lottery urging players to check their tickets

The winning numbers in Friday night’s draw were 5, 15, 17, 37, 44 and the winning Lucky Star numbers are 7 and 11 (Getty/iStock)

A British ticket holder has won the £76.3m jackpot in Friday night’s EuroMillions draw.

A single player has matched all five numbers and two Lucky Star numbers, winning the jackpot which had been rolling over since the start of October.

The National Lottery is urging players to check their tickets, as the winner has yet to come forward.

“We have plenty of champagne on ice ready to celebrate,” said National Lottery winners’ adviser Andy Carter.

The winning numbers in Friday night’s draw were 5, 15, 17, 37, 44, and the winning Lucky Star numbers are 7 and 11.

The lucky ticket holder has all the numbers, winning a total of £76,369,806.80.

Mr Carter said buying a lottery ticket helped to raise money for good causes.

“On average, around £30m is raised every week for projects across the UK, both big and small, including funding everything from local community projects to preserving the nation’s heritage.”

The win comes months after British couple Fred and Lesley Higgins, from Aberdeenshire, won £57.9m in July.

The couple were almost denied the enormous jackpot after a shop assistant accidently ripped up the ticket and threw it in the bin.

It was only after the lottery machine produced a message saying the ticket should be retained and lottery operator Camelot should be contacted that Mr Higgins double checked his numbers and realised he had won.

The biggest UK EuroMillions winner this year was an anonymous ticket holder who scooped £121m in April, while in February another anonymous player won £77m.

In all, 91 UK ticket holders have won the EuroMillions jackpot or a share of the jackpot prize, placing the country second behind France in terms of jackpot wins.

There are now nine European countries participating – the UK, France, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal and Switzerland.

The first EuroMillions draw took place on 13 February 2004.