Record Lotto jackpot: What are the chances of actually winning?

Eager wannabe millionaires are expected to snap up thousands of last-minute Lotto tickets as the biggest-ever jackpot goes up for grabs - and is guaranteed to be paid out.

Here's what you need to know:

How likely are you to hit the jackpot?

Short answer: Not very.

Before October, the game involved choosing six numbers between 1 and 49, giving players odds of one in 13,983,816.

In October, however, Camelot (which runs the National Lottery) added an extra 10 numbers into the mix - meaning the odds of matching six numbers drops to one in 45,057,474.

To put that another way: If you bought 21,635 tickets every week for the next 40 years, one of them is likely to win.

So what's more probable than winning the lottery?

• Dying in an aeroplane crash - 1 in 11m

• Flipping a coin and landing heads 23 times in a row: 1 in 8.4m

• A deadly wasp or bee sting - 1 in 6m

• Being eaten by a shark - 1 in 3.7m

• Being struck by lightning - 1 in 2.3m

• Dying after falling out of bed - 1 in 2m

• Dying after falling off a ladder - 1 in 1m

• Getting hit by a meteor - 1 in 700,000

• Dying in a road accident - 1 in 43,500

• Being seriously injured while putting on trousers - 1 in 10,000

Sources: RoSPA, DTI, HSE, Nasa, National Geographic

What are the most common winning lottery numbers?

While the balls are chosen at random, there do seem to be some regular faces. Number 23 is the most commonly-chosen winner, having been picked 284 times.

Of course, with at least one draw a week for more than 1,000 weeks, that's still relatively low.

Here are the top six:

• 23 - Picked 284 times. Last appeared: Nov 18, 2015

• 40 - Picked 282 times. Last appeared: Jan 2, 2016

• 33 - Picked 277 times. Last appeared: Sept 26, 2015

• 38 - Picked 277 times. Last appeared: Dec 26, 2015

• 30 - Picked 276 times. Last appeared: Nov 18, 2015

• 44 - Picked 275 times. Last appeared: Dec 26, 2015

Which numbers are most 'overdue' to be picked?

With so many balls rolling around - and another 10 numbers to choose from as of October - some numbers have not made an appearance for several months.

These include:

• 6 - Last appeared: Sept 9, 2015 (119 days ago)

• 33 - Last appeared: Sept 26, 2015 (102 days ago)

• 45 - Last appeared: Sept 30, 2015 (98 days ago)

• 5 - Last appeared: Oct 7, 2015 (91 days ago)

• 16 - Last appeared: Oct 10, 2015 (88 days ago)

• 36 - Last appeared: Oct 28, 2015 (70 days ago)

What was the lowest Lotto jackpot win ever?

The smallest-ever jackpot prize was dished out on August 13, 2014, and topped out at a meagre £720,152.

Even worse, there were two winners who matched all six numbers - meaning they took home just £360,076 each.

However, they still fared better than the people who won the lottery drawn on January 14, 1995.

There was a respectable jackpot fund of more than £16m - more than enough, you might think. But 133 people chose the exact same numbers, winning each of them a prize of just £122,510.

The numbers chosen were 7, 17, 23, 32, 38, and 42.

What was the highest Lotto jackpot win ever?

Before the recent run of rollovers, the biggest jackpot fund was £42m, shared between three winners who each took home £14m in 1996.

The biggest UK Lotto win from a single ticket was in 1995, when colleagues Mark Gardiner and Paul Maddison scooped £22.5m to share.

But the biggest single winner was Iris Jeffrey from Belfast, who bagged £20.1m in 2004.