The Probability Of Winning The Lottery

Meghan Trainor is all about that bass. We're all about those odds. Knowing the probability of a given event is important because life is all about probabilities. For example, since that last paragraph was all about the repetition, there's a strong probability that the song will end up stuck in your head now, whether you want it to be or not. If not, congratulations, you've beaten the odds. Beating the odds for a lottery, however, well, that's a bit tougher, but by knowing those odds at least you know what you're up against. So to help you, we've prepared detailed odds on all our top lotteries, including an at-a-glance overview on jackpots, plus all the winning odds for the most popular lotteries here at Lottoland.

Probability Of Hitting The Jackpot

The first question anyone wants to know is – how much can I win? Oftentimes, that's the only question lottery players concern themselves with.

But if you're reading this, then you want to scratch beneath the surface to find out not just how much the jackpot is, but also your odds of hitting it are. The table below shows those odds plus your odds of winning any prize on some of our most popular lotteries. Don't ignore those prizes, as some of these 'secondary' prizes can turn out to be quite substantial.

Irish Lotto

As you're probably well aware, the Lotto went through a format change in 2015, resulting in higher jackpots but also higher jackpot odds. That being said, the Irish Lotto's new jackpot odds are still extremely favourable when compared with other European lotteries – take the relatively high jackpots into account and it's a great all-rounder lottery.

UK Lotto

As with the Irish Lotto, the UK Lotto saw a format change in 2015. In this case, however, its jackpot odds were raised considerably from around 13 million to over 45 million. The silver lining, however, was the potential for record-high jackpots, something we saw in January 2016 when the record jackpot (to date) of £66.1 million was won.

[Note the above data is based only on the main lottery and does not take the Raffle into account.]

EuroJackpot

EuroMillions is still Europe's largest lottery, but it has some stiff competition.  EuroJackpot is hugely popular in Germany and Scandinavia and is starting to gain in popularity here now too, as it offers sizable jackpots at better odds than EuroMillions. EuroJackpot is capped at a top prize of €90 million, a sum that has been won three times so far. 

EuroMillions

EuroMillions' popularity is as high as ever, thanks, in no small part, to its consistently high jackpots. Of course, with high jackpots come high jackpot odds. But just how high are the odds of EuroMillions?  This jackpot is capped at a maximum of €190 million and tends to generate a lot of excitement when it starts to rise above the €100 million mark.

PowerBall

As with both the Irish and UK Lottos, America's PowerBall also went through a major format change in 2015. The changes increased the jackpot odds considerably, but also allowed for a bigger prize pool and more rollovers. The result was a record-breaking jackpot in January, the biggest lottery jackpot of all time, worth a staggering $1.586 billion, or approximately €1.4 billion.

MegaMillions

Coke Vs. Pepsi, Mac Vs. PC, Marvel Vs. DC – there've been lots of brand rivalries over the years. In the lottery world, however, the biggest rivalry is between the two American super-lotteries. Powerball's format change was made precisely to unseat MegaMillions, which had held the biggest jackpot title from March 2012 until January 2016. Now, MegaMillions is striking back with changes to its format, which will see its jackpots rise high enough to challenge the records of its US rivals. 

Improve Your Chances of Winning!

Lotteries are the ultimate game of chance - the odds stacked against you are high, but the rewards are the sweetest of all. Of course, we publish all the odds and probabilities in the individual FAQs of all of our lotteries. If you want to improve your chances of winning, there are a couple of factors you should take into account. We have shown you the odds of winning some of our most popular lotteries, and these should be taken into account when you consider which one to go for, as well as the jackpot, of course. The old saying 'if you're not in, you can't win' is certainly true, as your odds of getting a win are improved by entering more draws. Syndicates are a great way to boost your chances of a win too, and even if you don't have your own syndicate at home or work, you can simply join a syndicate at Lottoland to tilt the odds more in your favour.