Odds of winning any Florida Lotto prize are 1 in 7.61. The multipliers are not applied to the jackpot or the free ticket prizes. The odds of a particular being randomly selected are as follows. Former Lotto corporate communications general manager Emilia Mazur said Division 7 had increased chances of winning a prize to one in 30. Previously, the best chance of getting a prize was one in 200.
Imagine taking a crispy lotto ticket out of your pocket and realizing that you just won $10 million. Now, imagine that you won $1.5 billion.
Sound like a fantasy? Believe it or not, both the Powerball and Mega Millions have paid jackpots in excess of $1.5 billion before.
You can now play in some of the world’s national lotteries online no matter where you’re from thanks to online lotto sites which allow you to bet on the result. Even if you’re in the UK, New Zealand, Fiji, Brazil, or India, you can bet on the US lotteries and vice versa.
After writing that in-depth piece on how to play lotteries online, I got to wondering about which lotteries have the best odds of winning. It’s no secret that lottery games have terrible odds in general, but are some games better than others?
Do you have an equal chance of winning the UK lottery as you do of winning the EuroMillions or Powerball?
I’m going to answer those online lottery questions here. Welcome to my odds comparison for the top lottos in the world. I have researched seven different lotteries and will cover them all one by one.
Mega Millions – USA
Most US lotto players have dreamed of winning the Mega Millions. There are few draws in the world which can even come close in terms of jackpots. The biggest ever Mega Millions win was $1.53 billion. While such massive jackpots are usually split between multiple players, one lucky player ran away with this colossal jackpot.
To win the Mega Millions jackpot, you have to match five white balls and one yellow ball. These are picked from two separate pools of numbers. The white numbers can be between one and 70, and the yellow numbers can be between one and 25.
What are your odds of pulling off such a seemingly impossible feat? One in 302,575,350. Don’t let that put you off playing, though. Mega Millions tickets only cost $2 per line, so it’s well worth a shot when the jackpots are crazy big.
Powerball – USA
The other mega lotto in the USA is the Powerball. It’s the only draw which has a record jackpot which slightly tops the Mega Millions record. In 2016, three lucky players split a massive $1.58 billion. In a random plot twist, a prisoner sued them, claiming he had given them $20 for the tickets.
How do you win the Powerball draw? You have to match five white balls between one and 69, and one red ball between one and 26. These are also picked from two separate pools of lotto balls.
Your odds of winning the Powerball draw are slightly better than winning Mega Millions, although I do emphasize the word slightly. You have a one in 292,201,388 chance. At $2 per ticket, you might as well give it a shot when the jackpot is large enough to grab your attention.
EuroMillions – Europe
The EuroMillions draw is a multi-national lotto which players from participating countries in Europe can play in. There’s the main lotto draw, and some countries (like the UK) also have add-ons such as one guaranteed millionaire per week.
The biggest ever EuroMillions jackpot was a staggering €190 million. It can’t get any bigger than that, because that is the maximum jackpot cap.
To win the EuroMillions, you need to match five numbers and two lucky stars. The main numbers can be between one and 50, and the lucky stars can be between one and 12.
What are the odds of winning the EuroMillions jackpot? One in 139,838,160. That’s significantly better than either the Powerball or Mega Millions jackpots. EuroMillions may be better value at €2.50 per ticket.
German Lotto 6/49 – Germany
Germany is the European powerhouse as far as economics are concerned, so it’s probably no surprise that it has one of the biggest and best lotto draws on the continent. The biggest ever German Lotto 6/49 jackpot was €45,400,000 which three lucky winners split.
To play the German 6/49 Lotto, you need to pick six regular numbers between one and 49, and one Super Number between zero and nine. That’s a smaller number pool than the other lottos listed here so far, so are the odds better?
The odds of winning the German 6/49 Lotto are one in 139,838,160, the same as the EuroMillions odds. At €1.50 per ticket, this might be better value than the EuroMillions draw, but the jackpots rarely reach the same size.
EuroJackpot – Finland
Finland has an interesting approach to gambling. All losses in any form of gambling go towards social projects like building schools, roads, hospitals, etc. Hence, in Finland, there’s a saying about gambling that goes, “Every Finn Wins.”
EuroJackpot is the national lotto of Finland, and with a record jackpot of €90 million, it’s a serious lotto which players from around the world have an interest in.
The rules of EuroJackpot draw are as follows. You must pick five numbers between one and 50, and two additional numbers between one and 10. To win the jackpot, you need to match all seven, which is quite a task.
The odds of doing so are one in 95,344,200. That’s still insanely unlikely, but it’s better than the odds on the other lottos I’ve covered so far. A ticket to this draw will cost you €2.
The UK National Lotto – UK
The UK National Lotto is the original national lottery of the United Kingdom. There are now several different draws per week, but I’m referring to the original one here. This draw has a “quadruple rollover rule” that if nobody wins after four draws, the tickets with five numbers plus the bonus ball share it.
That gives a clue about how to play the UK Lotto. This game is straightforward. You simply have to pick six numbers between one and 59, and you need to match all six to win. A bonus ball is also drawn as a second chance for players who haven’t matched the original six. Five plus the bonus ball wins the second-highest prize, but not the jackpot.
The odds of winning the UK Lotto are one in 45,057,474. Of all the lotto draws we have covered in this article, this one has the best odds. You can play for £2 per ticket.
The Spanish Christmas Lottery – Spain
As the name implies, the Spanish Christmas Lottery takes place once per year on the 22nd of December. It’s technically called the Sorteo Extraordinario de Navidad, and it is extraordinary! The biggest ever jackpot was a whopping €720 million. 180 players split that. The average prize pool is estimated to be €2.3 billion.
This isn’t a lotto in the traditional sense. Instead of drawing lotto balls, they draw tickets from two massive drums. In this way, it’s more like a raffle than a lotto. Tickets have numbers between 00000 and 99999.
Odds Of Winning The Lottery Usa
The odds of winning the Spanish Christmas Lottery are one in 100,000. Of course, you won’t win the entire prize to yourself. Prizes range from €4 million to €1,000 and each ticket costs €200 each, so this might be out of reach for many players.
Unclaimed Lottery Wins
Believe it or not, some players have won the lottery games outlined above and have subsequently failed to claim their prizes. Isn’t that insane?!
Lottery With The Best Odds Of Winning Online
While researching the lotto games above, I came across some stories of unclaimed prizes, and I wanted to share those with you here.
Which Lotto Has The Best Odds Of Winning
- EuroMillions – When two players won a £128 million jackpot, the EuroMillions prize master expected two extremely happy people to show up with their tickets. However, only one ever did. The other, who purchased their ticket in the UK, never showed up to claim their half of the winnings worth a cool £64 million.
- Powerball – America’s truckers are some of the hardest working people in the country, which makes this story even harder to swallow. Someone won $77 million after purchasing a ticket in a truck stop in Tallapoosa, Georgia. However, they never showed up to claim their prize.
- Mega Millions – When you think of New York City, you think of some of the richest people on earth who reside there. However, I’m sure that none of them would turn down an extra $68 million. Someone did in 2002 when they never claimed their $68 million Mega Millions win.
- UK Lotto – When one winner doesn’t come forward, that’s strange enough. When two fail to show, it’s just bizarre. That happened in the UK in 2006 when two winners, one Scottish and one English, failed to show to split their £1.6 million prize. Okay, so it’s not the biggest lotto jackpot in history, but I’d certainly show up for £800 grand, wouldn’t you?
What on earth could cause a person to fail to collect such huge prizes? Well, apart from possibly having died without telling anyone they bought a ticket, the other potential reason is lost or stolen tickets. Wouldn’t that break your heart? Imagine playing the same numbers week in, week out, then losing your ticket the week they came up?
That’s even more reason to play online lotteries. You can’t lose your ticket when it’s digital and sent to you by email. In fact, since you don’t actually buy tickets when you play in lotto games abroad, but rather bet on the outcome, losing your ticket becomes impossible.
My Final Thoughts
In my humble opinion, the UK Lotto represents the best value for money overall. The jackpots don’t get nearly as big as they do in the EuroMillions or Powerball, but this game has the best odds of all the major national lotteries, and it only costs £2 to play.
If you do decide to bet on these national lotteries online, please remember that you are betting against the lotto site and are not really purchasing a ticket to the draw. Therefore, you’ll need to make sure that it’s a legit operation which can afford to pay you and which will honour its agreements.
Good luck, and don’t get too carried away with playing the lottery online. Remember, your chances of winning any lotto jackpot are slim to none, but it’s all about that one lucky shot at living out your dreams without the years of toil required to get there!
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.