FOR years, Hampshire Cricket’s match-day raffle has offered top cash prizes of less than £100.

Now Hampshire has become the first cricket club to launch its own lottery, with punters batting for prizes worth millions!

Tonight’s Hampshire Cricket Lotto jackpot is worth a cool £5.7million.

But that is still well below the average jackpot pay-out of £7.5m and prizes could reach a staggering £20m.

Punters are effectively betting on the outcome of the German lottery, with 26 per cent of every stake going to Hampshire Cricket in the Community, an Ageas Bowl-based charity offering “an innovative range of sporting, educational, health, and welfare programmes” for all.

Hampshire Cricket Lotto is in partnership with Lotto Network, a brand of lottery betting company MyLotto24 Ltd, which has similar arrangements with several Premier League football clubs, including Arsenal and Aston Villa.

Hampshire Cricket commercial director, Stuart Robertson, said: “Apparently one supporter, quite understandably, asked how his club could afford to pay out a £7.5m jackpot when they couldn't afford a centre forward!

“But we’re part of a syndicate including many football clubs. One of them is actually putting the money towards its transfer fund, but it’s a perfect platform for our official charity, Hampshire Cricket in the Community.

“We hope to soon have enough subscribers to bring in tens of thousands of pounds every year to support its various projects.”

Julian Morel, head of Business Development for Lotto Network, said: “We’ve signed up more than 20 professional sports clubs since 2012 but Hampshire Cricket Lotto is the first of its kind among cricket clubs.

“The more people we get on board the more chance we have of our first multi-million-pound winner.”

With draws every Wednesday and Saturday, Hampshire Cricket Lotto is based on a familiar lottery format and players over the age of 18 can sign up for single draws or on a subscription basis, at a cost of £1.50 per line.

Prizes can be won by matching numbers from 1 to 49, plus a Star number from 0-9.