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Thursday evening the jackpot in the Tzoker game hit €14 million, thus becoming the second biggest after April 2010 when it reached €19.2 million and three lucky ones shared it between them. This has even attracted the attention of people who have never bet in the past.

The president of the union of professional lottery agents Giorgios Poulimas, who runs a betting shop in Daphne, said that the largest amount won by a single individual in this game was 11 million euros.

A multitude of people hoping to win 14 million have been flooding betting shops since early morning. "Today people have been coming to my shop who never placed a bet in their lifetime, and asking how they're supposed to play," says Poulimas.

Some have admitted to be betting as a way to address their financial woes; for them the lottery is a means of survival.

The stream of people to the betting shops has intensified today, yet it is expected to peak tomorrow – hours before the draw. However, Poulimas says, the last few years have not seen such long queues as before – even with a mouth-watering jackpot. "The crisis has squeezed the cash out of people's pockets, and they tend to spend less on betting," he says.

Yet it is still a fact that the higher the jackpot grows the more gamblers it pulls to the shops. More than 3 million tickets, with 22.4 million columns, were filed up until Thursday, when the jackpot was €11 million.

The number of columns was 30% up compared to the Sunday, 26 October, draw, when the jackpot was 9 million Euro.

Tickets can be turned in until Sunday, 2 November, until 20:30 p.m., with the draw taking place half an hour later.