A freak stroke of chance saw five people who shared Saturday's £4.8m lottery jackpot win less than the person who matched five numbers plus the bonus ball.
The windfall will see the unnamed five each pocket £968,272 for matching all six numbers.
But in a "very rare" twist, operator Camelot said the sole 'match five plus one' winner scooped nearly £1.5m.
They said it came about because the jackpot winners had to share their allocation of 52% of the total prize draw once the £10 winners had been paid.
But the sole 'match five plus one' winner was lucky enough to take their full 16% share of the fund.
"That's the beauty of the lottery - you never know what's going to happen," a spokesman said.
"It's certainly very rare, but at the end of the day we have six big winners who have won life-changing money and we think it's fantastic news."
In Saturday's draw, 331 people got five numbers to each win £2,812.
Another 17,931 matched four numbers to claim £114 each, while 367,896 won £10 each for matching three numbers.
The winning numbers were 49, 41, 39, 36, 15, 30 and the bonus number was 02.
Wednesday's estimated jackpot is £2.2m.
