EuroMillions FAQs

To play EuroMillions, you must select five main numbers from 1 to 50 and two Lucky Star numbers between 1 and 12. You can buy tickets from authorised retailers in any of the nine participating countries, or enter online. View the How to Play EuroMillions page for a step-by-step guide to taking part.

EuroMillions draws take place in Paris on Tuesday and Friday evenings at approximately 8:00pm UK time (9:00pm CET).

Ticket sales close at 7:30pm UK time on the night of a draw. Sales remain closed until the draw has taken place, reopening shortly after for the next draw.

You can buy tickets for up to four weeks in advance, entering either the Tuesday draw each week, the Friday draw, or both. It is therefore possible to enter your numbers into eight consecutive draws by playing every Tuesday and Friday for four weeks. You can also sign up to play continuously by direct debit.

Yes, the Lucky Stars are drawn from a separate pool of 12 numbers. You can therefore select the same number(s) as a Lucky Star and a main ball.

The cost of a single EuroMillions play in the UK is £2.50. This price also enters you automatically into the Millionaire Maker.

EuroMillions tickets are available from retailers in Austria, Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland, as well as the UK. However, the game can also be played online in other countries thanks to online concierge and betting services. Go to the Tickets page to take part.

You win prizes by matching the numbers you select to the winning numbers drawn. There are 13 different prize tiers, and you can win prizes just by matching two main numbers. To win the jackpot, you must match all five main numbers and both Lucky Stars.

The overall odds of winning a prize are 1 in 13. The chances of winning the jackpot are 1 in 139,838,160.

The jackpot starts at a minimum of €17 million (approximately £15 million) and rolls over if there is not a winner. However, the jackpot can only go up to a maximum of €250 million. Once it reaches that level, it is capped and can only stay at €250 million for four draws at the most. In the next draw (the fifth one at €250 million), the jackpot must be won and the money will be shared between players in the highest winning tier if there are no Match 5 + 2 winners.

Fifty percent of the money you spend on a ticket is returned to players as prize money. A percentage of this prize fund is then allocated to each of the 13 prize categories. This is known as a pari-mutuel prize structure, so the prizes are not fixed and vary from draw to draw depending on how many tickets are sold and the number of winners.

The money that is not given to the prize fund is distributed in a number of different ways – with 28 percent going to good causes, 12 percent to the UK Government as Lottery Duty and five percent to retailers as commission. The remaining five percent covers operating costs and profit for the lottery operator.

The method for claiming prizes depends on how you play and how much you win. If you play online, smaller amounts will be transferred straight into your lottery account, but you must contact the National Lottery for anything larger than £30,000. If you buy a paper ticket, you must visit an authorised retailer for awards up to £100. You can go to a National Lottery Post Office or claim by mail if you win up to £50,000, but you must claim larger amounts in person. Take a look at the page on Claiming EuroMillions Prizes for more details.

When a prize is waiting to be claimed, it is held in trust managed by Law Debenture rather than a Allwyn bank account. Any interest that accrues during this time is transferred to the Good Causes Fund – but is first used to pay various fees. These include Law Debenture’s trustee fees and fees owed to external auditors, along with bank charges and tax.

You win if the Millionaire Maker code on your ticket matches the winning code selected on the night. The code consists of four letters and five numbers and you must match it exactly with each digit in the same order. At least one code will be drawn alongside each EuroMillions game and the prize for winning is £1 million.

In EuroMillions HotPicks, you are able to decide how many numbers you want to try and match, from one up to five. You select your numbers from a pool of 1 to 50 and the winning numbers are the same five main balls from the EuroMillions draw. You must match all the numbers you choose to win the associated prize; you can win £10 for matching just one number or £1 million for matching all five. Go to the EuroMillions HotPicks page to find out more.

Yes, you can play EuroMillions and EuroMillions HotPicks independently from each other.