Your EuroMillions Questions & Answers [FAQ]

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Questions

Answers

What time is the EuroMillions Draw in the UK?

Both the Tuesday and Friday evening draws are made at 8pm, i.e. 20:00 GMT.

What channel is the EuroMillions draw on in UK/Ireland?

You can watch the live draw on BBC1 around 10:30pm on Tuesday and Friday in the UK, and around 9pm on RTE One in Ireland.

What time do ticket sales close?

You can buy a ticket right up until 30 minutes before the draw. So the official closing time when EuroMillions ticket sales stop is 7:30pm (19:30 GMT). Although not all ticket sellers will provide a service until that time.

What are my chances of winning?

The odds of hitting the EuroMillions jackpot are 1 in 139,838,160 (so approximately 1 in 139 Million). There are of course lots of other prize tiers, and if you crunch the numbers you get an overall chance of winning at least something of 1 in 13. That means if you buy 13 tickets on average you can expect to win at least some of your money back.

How to know if you win EuroMillions?

OK, firstly there are lots of ways to win a prize. If you match at least 2 main numbers, OR 1 main number plus both Lucky Stars — then you have won something. And the more you match the better of course :-). But if you’re looking for a better chance of winning then join a EuroMillions syndicates.

How much is a EuroMillions ticket?

The price of each line or set of numbers is £2.50. And each line will include an entry to the UK Millionaire Maker. So if you buy 4 sets of numbers, this will also give you 4 Millionaire Maker entries and cost a total of £10.

How do you play EuroMillions?

It’s quite easy really. You simply pick 5 numbers from the range of 1 to 50. These are your ‘main’ numbers. Then you also pick 2 ‘Lucky Star’ numbers from the range 1 to 12. You then choose which draws you want to play (Tuesday, Friday or both), and how many weeks you want to play those same numbers.

Can you play EuroMillions online?

Yes, you can play online. But be careful where you play. The only official source for buying tickets in the UK is the official National Lottery site. If you buy a ticket anywhere else you are likely to end up paying a lot more money than the normal ticket price.

How many countries play EuroMillions?

At the moment there are 9 countries across Europe that take part in the game. It originally launched with 3 with the others joining later.

Which countries play EuroMillions?

At launch it was just the UK, Spain and France. But Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal and Austria have all joined since then.

When did EuroMillions start?

The launch of the game was 5th February 2004 in London. Then the start date of the very first draw was Friday 13th February 2004.

Where do the draws take place?

The actual draw machine is based and operated in Paris. So all countries that broadcast the draw are actually watching the process taking place in France.

How many times can EuroMillions rollover?

The rules around rollovers has changed over the years. The current rules place a limit on the amount the jackpot can reach. This is ‘capped’ so the rollovers stop at €190 Million with any extra above this being allocated to the prize tiers below (i.e. it will ‘roll down’). But this only applies for 5 draws at most. Because if the jackpot is not won in the next 4 draws after reaching the cap amount, then the whole amount will roll down to be shared by the next prize tier. That makes for a pretty special draw and is one to watch out for!

What is the EuroMillions Superdraw?

Superdraws are special promotional events. Typically the jackpot is set to roughly £80 Million (€100 Million). There is no specific time when a Superdraw happens as they are used to boost ticket sales. Find out when the next big EuroMillions SuperDraw is here.

When did the Tuesday EuroMillions draw start?

The Tuesday draw was added on 10th May 2011. Up until then EuroMillions only had one draw per week on a Friday.

How long are EuroMillions tickets valid?

You can claim on a ticket for up to 180 days past the actual date of the draw in which you won a prize. So you only have roughly 6 months to claim any prize. After that the prize money is allocated to the Good Causes fund, which sadly has happened to a lot of fairly big prizes (always check your tickets folks!)

How old do I have to be to play EuroMillions?

The minimum age you have to be to play in the UK is 16 years. In other countries you have to be 18.

What is the biggest EuroMillions jackpot ever?

There are actually two different answers to this one! The largest ever jackpot so far was won on 12th August 2012. It was for €190 Million and was won by UK couple Adrian & Gillian Bayford. But because prizes are converted from Euros to UK pounds, they actually received £148 Million due to the exchange rate at that time. But on 18th July 2011 Chris and Colin Weir, from Scotland, received £161 Million. The actual prize was a smaller €185 Million but due to the better exchange rate they ended up with more money in the bank. Not that the Bayford’s have any complaints 🙂

What is the UK Millionaire Maker?

Millionaire Maker is an ‘add-on’ game played only in the UK. It was originally called Millionaire Raffle and was introduced on 10th October 2009 (at the time the ticket price was increased to £2). It’s a compulsory add-on game, so each UK entry into EuroMillions automatically provides a randomly generated ‘raffle number’. The prize is a guaranteed £1 Million every draw. This is always won because a raffle number is randomly picked out of all those created for that draw – just like a raffle at a school fair, only with a slightly bigger prize.

What are the odds of winning the Millionaire Maker?

Because the game is a raffle, there isn’t a fixed answer to this question. So your chances of winning the raffle depend entirely on how many tickets were bought for that draw. But remember this only applies to tickets bought in the UK, so the odds are better than you might think. As a rough guide the odds are about 1 in 3,570,000 for a Tuesday draw, and 1 in 5,080,000 for a Friday draw. This difference is because more people play the Friday draw.

How does Millionaire Maker work for multiple draw tickets?

If you buy a multi-draw ticket you will only be given one set of raffle numbers. But don’t worry, these will be entered into every draw for which your ticket covers. If you buy an 8 draw ticket you do still play Millionaire Maker for every draw, so don’t forget to check the raffle results for each draw.

What is the UK Millionaire Raffle?

This is the old name for what is now called the Millionaire Maker. Which is a punchier name to be fair, especially as being a ‘raffle’ type game it does actually create a new millionaire every single draw!

Where is the official EuroMillions lotto website?

Because EuroMillions is played all over Europe it has lots of different homes in each country. For the UK the official site is at https://www.national-lottery.co.uk/. There used to be a simple 1-page official umbrella site at euromillions.eu but that has now been withdrawn. Anything else similar sounding is definitely NOT official so beware.

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