Right then, this table exists because of a staffroom conversation. A colleague asked me last month why she should bother with EuroMillions over the EuroJackpot, and I realised I didn't actually know off the top of my head -- I just had a vague sense that "the big one" was harder to win. So I pulled together every UK and EU lottery game I've been tracking during six months of parallel testing (my own frequency analysis running alongside a couple of AI lottery tools, if you've read the rest of this site) and built the reference table below.
A word on reading the odds column before you dive in. A number like 139,838,160 doesn't mean much on its own -- it just looks big. Here's a way to actually feel it: flip a coin and call heads. Get it right, flip again. You'd need to call heads correctly around 27 times in a row before the odds against you matched a EuroMillions jackpot. Nobody plans their week around that happening, and that's rather the point of this whole page.
I should also deal with the "hot numbers" myth here, because at least two people in my staffroom swear by it. The idea that a number is "due" because it hasn't come up in a while is the gambler's fallacy in a jumper -- each draw is independent, the balls have no memory of last Wednesday, and no amount of frequency-tracking, mine included, changes the odds printed below. My own rough tracking over six months came out close enough to what pure chance predicts that I stopped pretending otherwise.
The prices and formats below change more often than you'd think -- the UK Lotto switched to a genuinely new two-round format in June 2026, and EuroMillions has changes pending for the autumn. I've flagged both in the definitions section. Everything else here is exactly what each operator publishes, checked against the live source rather than copied from wherever it was last quoted.
How to actually feel these numbers: to match EuroMillions' 1-in-139-million jackpot, you'd have to call heads on a coin flip correctly around 27 times in a row. Even the "easiest" game here — Thunderball — is 1 in 8 million. No frequency system, no "hot numbers," no AI tool changes that: every game on this list has negative expected value. Play for the maths lesson, not the plan.
UK & EU Lottery Comparison Table
The following table compares the primary metrics for ten major UK and EU lottery games. Every figure below is checked against the operator or a fetchable authoritative mirror -- see the Sources list for exactly where each number came from.
| Game Name | Format (Main + Bonus) | Jackpot Odds (1 in X) | Overall Odds (Any Prize) | Standard Entry Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EuroMillions | 5/50 + 2/12 [1] | 139,838,160 [1] | 1 in 13 [1] | £2.50 / €2.50 [1] |
| EuroJackpot | 5/50 + 2/12 [2] | 139,838,160 [3] | 1 in 32 [3] | €2.00 [4] |
| UK Lotto (New 2026 Format) | 6/59 (Two-Round Draw) [5] | 45,057,474 [6] | 1 in 4.9 [5] | £2.00 [5] |
| SuperEnalotto (Italy) | 6/90 [8] | 622,614,630 [7] | 1 in 16 [7] | €1.00 [8] |
| French Loto | 5/49 + 1/10 [9] | 19,068,840 [9] | 1 in 5.99 [10] | €2.20 [9] |
| Vikinglotto | 6/48 + 1/5 [11] | 61,357,560 [12] | Varies by country [11] | €1 – €10 (varies by country) [11] |
| El Gordo de la Primitiva (Spain) | 5/54 + 1/10 [13] | 31,625,100 [13] | 1 in 6.16 [14] | €1.50 [13] |
| Irish Lotto | 6/47 [15] | 10,737,573 [15] | 1 in 29 [15] | €2.00 (min 2 lines) [15] |
| Set For Life (UK) | 5/47 + 1/10 [16] | 15,339,390 [17] | 1 in 12.4 [17] | £1.50 [16] |
| Thunderball (UK) | 5/39 + 1/14 [18] | 8,060,598 [18] | 1 in 13 [18] | £1.00 [18] |
Game Format Definitions
Right, the jargon these games throw at you, explained without the marketing gloss:
- Double-Matrix System
- A format where players pick numbers from two separate pools (e.g., 5 from 50, plus 2 from 12). Both sets have to match exactly to win the jackpot -- most of the "big" games on this list use some version of it.
- Two-Round Draw (UK Lotto, from June 2026)
- Allwyn's new Lotto format, live since 10 June 2026, enters a single £2 ticket into two consecutive, independent draws instead of one. I had to read it twice before it made sense: same ticket, same price, two separate sets of six numbers and a bonus ball drawn from two machines. It's why the overall odds of winning something improved from roughly 1 in 9.3 to 1 in 4.9.
- Annuity Prize
- A prize paid out in instalments over a fixed period -- Set For Life's top prize, for instance, pays £10,000 a month for 30 years -- rather than as one lump sum.
- Jackpot Cap
- The ceiling a jackpot can reach before the rules force the money down into lower prize tiers. EuroMillions' cap currently stands at €250 million. A rule change proposed for 30 September 2026 would raise it further, and operators have floated €300 million as one possibility -- but the exact new figure hasn't actually been confirmed, so treat that number as a rumour with a date attached, not a fact.
Last verified: 2026-07-12
Right, the bit that matters more than any of the numbers above: I built this table from six months of testing and reading, not a maths degree I don't have, and none of it changes the fact that every game up there has negative expected value baked in. No AI tool, no frequency spreadsheet, no system on this site or any other beats that maths -- if anyone tells you otherwise, they're selling something. Treat the odds above as "how unlikely is this, really," not as a nudge to spend more chasing a near-miss -- that particular habit is the easiest way to turn a £2 flutter into a problem, and it's the bit of advice most often missing from the shinier lottery blogs. If it ever stops being fun, or you catch yourself topping up because last week's numbers "were close," GamCare will talk it through confidentially and for free on 0808 802 0133. Play for the maths lesson, not the plan.
Sources
- Wikipedia: EuroMillions
- Euro-Jackpot.net: How to Play
- Euro-Jackpot.net: Odds of Winning
- Wikipedia: Eurojackpot
- Allwyn: New Two-Round Lotto Format (2026)
- Wikipedia: National Lottery (United Kingdom)
- SuperEnalotto.net: Prizes
- SuperEnalotto.net: How to Play
- Euro-Millions.com: French Loto
- Lotto.net: French Loto Prizes and Odds
- Viking-Lotto.net: How to Play
- Viking-Lotto.net: Prizes
- Maxiloto: How El Gordo de la Primitiva Works
- Lottomat: El Gordo Primitiva Odds
- Euro-Millions.com: Irish Lotto
- National-Lottery.com: Set For Life, How to Play
- National-Lottery.com: Set For Life Prizes
- Euro-Millions.com: Thunderball
- Euro-Millions.com: EuroMillions Jackpot Cap
- Euro-Millions.com: EuroMillions Changes on the Way in 2026