About EuroMillions Lottery

NEXT JACKPOT

€ 26 million

Next Draw: Tue 24/12/2024

About EuroMillions Lottery

EuroMillions is a Europe-wide lottery that takes place twice a week. As opposed to National lotteries that are limited to residents of a specific country, the EuroMillions Lottery combines the stakes from all participating countries, thereby increasing the winnings pool.

The Vision

The vision of a pan – European lottery was born in 1994. As a single European currency was being introduced, the EuroMillions Lottery was being developed. But, as with many border – crossing organizations, administration and policy delayed the plans several times before finally being established in 2004.

The EuroMillions Lottery was established by the Francais des Jeux in France, the Loterias y Apuestas del Estado in Spain, and Camelot in the United Kingdom. At first, the EuroMillions Lottery was made up of lotteries from these three countries, namely France, Spain and the United Kingdom alone, but few months after the first ever EuroMillions draw on Friday February 13th 2004, lotteries from Switzerland, Portugal, Luxembourg, Ireland, Belgium and Austria were incorporated as well.

The Winnings

The EuroMillions Lottery jackpot starts at 17 million Euros and has reached over 180 million Euros. Players must guess 5 numbers from a list of numbers from 1 to 50, as well as 2 numbers from 1 to 12, called the ‘lucky star’ numbers. All in all players must guess 7 numbers right in order to win the big prize. There are 13 different levels of EuroMillions Lottery prize categories, based on the amount of right numbers matched. As a result of this division into 13 prize categories, the odds of winning a prize in any given draw are 1 in 13.

The EuroMillions Lottery is a rolling jackpot lottery game, meaning that the grand prize jackpot is ‘rolled - over’ and added to the next week’s jackpot if the big prize is not won. If the big jackpot prize keeps rolling over week after week and still not won on the twelfth week draw, the grand prize is ‘rolled – down’ and distributed between the players in the second level, or tier - those who guessed right the five main numbers and only one ‘lucky star’ number. A draw like this, in which the cash prize is guaranteed to be paid out, regardless if there is a winner who guessed all seven winning numbers right, is called a Superdraw. In the draw following a Superdraw, the jackpot is reset to 17 million Euros.

Good Causes

A large portion of the revenue gathered by the EuroMillions Lottery goes toward the funding of ‘Good Causes’ in all of the countries participating in the Lottery, giving back to the communities, funding local activities and local charities.

Big Wins and Fun Facts

In a 2007 EuroMillions Lottery draw, the grand jackpot, over 125 million Euros, could not be rolled over one more time and had to be distributed to participants in that draw. Six ticket holders from the UK won over 10 million Euros each while another ticket holder from Devon never came forward to claim the prize, in spite of appeals from the EuroMillions Lottery operators. Prize winners in the EuroMillions Lottery have a period of 180 days following the draw to present their ticket and claim the prize. If a prize is not claimed during that time, the funds are forwarded to the Good Causes.

Following six consecutive roll - overs, the EuroMillions Lottery single win record was broken on May 8th 2009. A 25 year - old living in Majorca didn’t know she had the winning ticket for a whole three days following the draw, due to the flu which kept her in bed and away from work. Upon her return to work, still poorly from the flu, she realized she had won the record-breaking prize - 126 million Euros.

The previous individual EuroMillions win record was held by Dolores McNamara from Ireland, who won 115 million Euros in July of 2005.

The largest overall EuroMillions jackpot was drawn in February of 2006. Following a staggering eleven rollovers, the grand prize of 183,573,077 Euros was divided between three winners, one from Portugal and two from France, each receiving 61,191,025 Euros.

France is considered the luckiest of all European countries participating in the EuroMillions Lottery. More EuroMillions winners have hailed from France than any other participating country.