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Rules introduced in October have greatly decreased ticket holders' chances of winning REUTERS/David Moir

Camelot Group, owners of the UK National Lottery, have been facing increasing criticism after no one won the top prize for the 13th consecutive draw. Changes to the Lottery introduced in October 2015 are blamed for making the jackpot too difficult to win.

Saturday's prize is the largest in the National Lottery's history at £58m. According to new rules the prize has to be won on Saturday 9 January − if no one has the winning numbers then the money will be shared around the winners on the next prize tier.

In October, Camelot added 10 more numbers to the selection − increasing the odds of someone winning the jackpot from 1 in 14 million to 1 in 45 million.

Lottery players have taken to social media to complain that the changes have made the chances of winning too low − with some calling for a return of the old system and others saying they will move to other lotteries because of the changes.

A petition calling for the "unacceptable" changes to be scrapped has also been started, although it currently has only three signatures.

Camelot has continually stated that the changes have made it easy to win a prize, just not the top prize. A spokesperson said: "The number matrix change enables us to change the prize mechanics, so the new game means that we can create more cash winners all around, rather than just have one person winning the big jackpot. True, your odds of winning the jackpot are lessened, but with the new game, your chances of winning a cash prize are higher."

According the National Lottery, they were selling 200 tickets a second before Wednesday night's draw, leading to their website crashing a number of times.

The National Lottery raises over £34m a week for charitable projects. If one single person were to win this jackpot, they would overnight become richer than Coldplay front man, Chris Martin, worth £52m; and Kylie Minogue, worth £55m.

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