How to win euromillions

Win a Bigger Payout by Choosing Rarer Numbers

Choosing These Types of Lottery Numbers Has an Advantage.
Jonathan Kitchen / Getty Images

While it’s impossible to predict which numbers will be chosen in any given lottery drawing, picking certain numbers might have a slight advantage, not for your chances of winning, but for your payout.

If you win a lottery jackpot, there’s a chance you might have to split the payout with other people who picked the same numbers. So all things being equal (in that all numbers are equally likely to be picked), you might as well try to select rarer numbers to improve your odds of keeping more of the pot for yourself.

Play a EuroMillions System

System entries are often best suited to syndicates, as they involve buying a large number of entries for a draw. You would play more a combination of more numbers than the required five main numbers and two Lucky Stars. For example, you might choose to play six main numbers and three Lucky Stars, which would give you more chances to win should your numbers come up.

You can play system entries in Austria, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Portugal, Switzerland and Spain, but in the UK and Ireland you will need to create your own by writing down all possible combinations of the numbers you choose and entering them on multiple lines to ensure that they are all covered.

Predicting the Outcome of the EuroMillions Draw

You have to understand that probability theory is simply a reliable guide.  Naturally, the expected frequency and the actual frequency will not always match exactly.

You use probability to predict the future outcome of the game to guide you on how to play your game.

For example, if we want to know in advance the outcome of EuroMillions after 2000 draws, we use the same formula for expected frequency:

If we are to predict the outcome of all the odd-even patterns, we will come up with the following prediction table below:

Pattern	Probability	Estimated Occurrence in 2000 draws
3-odd-2-even	0.3256621797655230	651 times
2-odd-3-even	0.3256621797655230	651 times
4-odd-1-even	0.1492618323925310	299 times
4-even-1-odd	0.1492618323925310	299 times
All-odd	0.0250759878419453	50 times
All-even	0.0250759878419453	50 times

As a smart EuroMillions player, you don’t want to waste your money on patterns with low probability. That is the power of probability calculation as we apply it in EuroMillions.

As a lotto player, you want to win the jackpot. Therefore, you should stick with either 3-odd-2-even or 2-odd-3-even and forget about the rest of the patterns.

You get the same idea when it comes to low-high patterns.  You don’t want to pick a combination whose composition is purely low numbers or strictly high numbers.

However, EuroMillions is not only about low-high or odd-even patterns.

We discuss low-high and odd-even patterns to show that the lottery can be predicted to an extent.  But the low-high and odd-even patterns don’t provide the whole picture of the EuroMillions game.

You must understand the EuroMillions game as a whole if you want to win the game.  For you to achieve that, you have to understand intricate combinatorial patterns, which is the real key to EuroMillions’ success.

Let’s proceed to discuss what advanced patterns can do to level up your lotto playing strategy.

How to Win

There are 13 ways to win in the main draw, with larger prizes awarded for successfully matching more numbers. The overall odds of receiving any prize are 1 in 13.

Match	Win*
5 numbers + 2 Lucky Stars	Jackpot€17 million to €200 million
5 numbers + 1 Lucky Star	£300,811.96
5 numbers	£47,453.73
4 numbers + 2 Lucky Stars	£2,768.14
4 numbers + 1 Lucky Star	£130.20
3 numbers + 2 Lucky Stars	£53.35
4 numbers	£57.75
2 numbers + 2 Lucky Stars	£13.24
3 numbers + 1 Lucky Star	£9.75
3 numbers	£8.11
1 number + 2 Lucky Stars	£7.03
2 numbers + 1 Lucky Star	£5.32
2 numbers	£2.80

_{*For Match 5 + 2, the range of available prize amounts is shown. For all other prize tiers, the average amount is shown. Averages have been calculated using data from draws since 10/05/2011.}

The chances of winning the jackpot are 1 in 139,838,160. Visit the EuroMillions Odds page to see your chances of winning in each different prize tier.

Millionaire Maker & HotPicks

UK ticket holders also have an additional chance to win £1 million thanks to the Millionaire Maker. Millionaire Maker is a supplementary game which is automatically included when you enter EuroMillions. You receive one code for every combination of EuroMillions numbers you play and it is all included in the cost of a ticket, so you do not need to do anything extra. A winning Millionaire Maker code is drawn alongside each main EuroMillions draw and if the code on your ticket matches the winning code exactly, you win. Special draws also take place from time to time which guarantee multiple winners.

EuroMillions HotPicks is a separate game, so it can be played on its own. Unlike Millionaire Maker, you need to opt in to play the game, which costs £1.50 per entry. HotPicks uses the five main numbers from the EuroMillions draw, and players can decide how many of the numbers they want to try and match. For example, you can choose to try and match just one number to win £10 or you can attempt to match all five for £1 million. The cost of entry is the same regardless of how many numbers you try and match. See the EuroMillions HotPicks page to learn more.

How to WIN Euro Millions

Below are a few lotto tips to help you pick euro millions winning combinations, but Gail Howard’s book,
Lottery Master Guide, explains all of her
successful methods of number selection in great detail with examples
of patterns shown throughout.

Lottery numbers are randomly drawn. But randomly drawn numbers form patterns
that can be tracked and used to our advantage. Having carefully analyzed all the
drawings in past lottery results of more than 180 different Lotto games worldwide, with
histories going back as far as 1955, we have verified the following incredibly simple rule:

That which is MOST POSSIBLE happens MOST OFTEN.
That which is LEAST POSSIBLE happens LEAST OFTEN.

The key to Smart Luck’s successful lotto number selection methods is playing
the probabilities. If you play a pattern that occurs only five
percent of the time, you can expect that pattern to lose 95
percent of the time, giving you no chance to win 95 percent of
the time. So, don’t buck the probabilities.

Tickets Purchased Outside the UK

It is only possible to collect a EuroMillions prize in the country where the ticket was purchased. Players who purchased an entry in another country must return there to claim their money. Below are the details for the length of time before prizes expire in each of the other eight participating countries:

Country	Tickets Are Valid For	EuroMillions Operator
Austria	3 years	Österreichische Lotterien
Belgium	140 days	Nationale Loterij
France	60 days	FDJ
Ireland	90 days	Irish National Lottery
Luxembourg	60 days	Loterie Nationale Luxembourg
Portugal	90 days	Jogos Santa Casa
Spain	90 days	Loterías y Apuestas del Estado
Switzerland	180 days	Swisslos

Small prizes will be redeemable from any authorised retailer in the country. If you win a larger amount, or even the jackpot, then you will need to contact that country’s official operator for advice.

Tax

Only three of the nine participating countries charge taxes on lottery winnings:

• Spain — Prizes of €40,000 or more are taxed at 20%
• Switzerland — A 35% tax is owed on any winnings worth over CHF1 million
• Portugal — Prize amounts over €5,000 are taxed at 20%

Playing Online

Playing online has become increasingly popular as it offers a number of advantages over buying a ticket from a retailer. For example, once you purchase your entries online, they are then stored in your account and cannot be lost, stolen or damaged unlike paper tickets. Plus you will be notified if you win, so you don’t even need to check the results.

If you’d like to play online, visit the EuroMillions Online page to get started.

Direct Debits

Another advantage of entering online is that National Lottery players can enter their lines on a continuous basis to ensure they never miss a draw. To set up a Direct Debit, follow these steps:

• Step1

  Fill out an online playslip
  Select your numbers, how many lines you wish to play and whether you want to take part in the Tuesday draw, the Friday draw, or both.

• Step2

  Choose to play ‘continuously by Direct Debit’
  Rather than selecting the option to enter for a set number of weeks.

• Step3

  Submit your bank sort code and account number

The Direct Debit will take about four weeks to begin and you will then be entered automatically into your chosen draws. You will get a different Millionaire Maker entry for each draw.

You can make changes to your personal details, the numbers you want to use or the draws you wish to enter at any time by going to your account.

Ireland

Prize Total	Online
Up to €99	Prizes are paid directly into your online account.
Between €100 and €500	Prizes are sent by cheque to your registered home address.
Between €501 and €9,999	Prizes are paid by cheque once a claim form has been completed.
Over €10,000	Prizes must be collected in person from National Lottery headquarters in Dublin. A cheque will be presented once the win has been validated.

Prize Total	Authorised Retailer
Up to €100	Smaller prizes can be claimed from any authorised lottery retailer. Some retailers can also pay out prizes of up to €2,500 if funds are available.
Between €100 and €15,000	Visit any lottery claim centre around the country to pick up your prize.
Over €15,000	You must visit the lottery headquarters in Dublin to claim your prize. Alternatively, you can claim lower awards by sending your ticket by post* to lottery headquarters. If you have won the jackpot, the Match 5+1 Star prize or the top EuroMillions Plus award of €500,000, you should ring the lottery straight away on 01- 836 4444.

EuroMillions players in Ireland have 90 days to claim any prizes.

How to Win EuroMillions Jackpots

A EuroMillions player who matches all 5 main numbers plus the two Lucky Star numbers correctly wins the jackpot. If there is no jackpot winner then the first prize money remains in the pot and is added to the jackpot for the next round. There is, however, an upper jackpot limit of €200 million (the «jackpot cap»). All funds that would normally elevate the prize money above the €200 million level are immediately allocated to the next prize category with winners. If the €200 million jackpot is not won four draws in a row, the entire sum is divided up amongst the winners of the next prize category with winners. 
Here’s a list of the top 10 EuroMillions jackpots:

Date	Location	Prize(s)	Winners
8/10/2019	United Kingdom	€190 million	A single ticket purchased in the UK won a must-be-won jackpot after a stunning EuroMillions rollover series.
10/8/2012	Suffolk, England	€190 million	Adrian and Gillian Bayford. They used the Quick Pick option to seal their jackpot winning fate after 14 jackpot rollovers.
24/10/2014	Castelo Branco, Portugal	€190 million	This anonymous Portuguese winner is the country’s 53rd jackpot winner.
6/10/2017	Las Palmas, Spain	€190 million	The anonymous winner claimed the third biggest EuroMillions jackpot in history after a Superdraw jackpot rolled over 6 times!
7/6/2016	Dublin, Ireland and Limburg, Belgium	€187 million	This extraordinary jackpot is actually the biggest shared prize in EuroMillions history!
12/7/2011	Largs, Scotland	€185 million	Chris and Colin Weir. The pair has since donated much of their winnings to various charitable causes.
3/2/2006	France and Portugal	€183 million	The anonymous pair were each awarded €61 million.
17/6/2006	UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Belgium	€183 million	When there was still a rollover cap, in 2006 it had reached the max of 12 rollovers and the jackpot was split between 20 second division winners.
23/2/2018	United Kingdom and Spain	€177 million	Each winner claimed €77 million. The Spanish winner was part of a syndicate of 80 people.
19/2/2019	Ireland	€175 million	The Naul Family became Ireland’s biggest EuroMillions winners after they won this incredible jackpot!
3/10/2014	Alpes-Maritime, France	€169 million	This anonymous French player is the biggest Euromillions jackpot holder in the entire country!

How to Identify a EuroMillions Lottery Scam

• It is not possible to win a EuroMillions prize, raffle, sweepstake or competition that you have not entered. If you receive a notification informing you that you have won a prize in a game you have never played, it is a scam.
• To win a EuroMillions prize, you must have purchased a ticket for the correct draw date and your number selection must match the balls required to win the relevant prize.
• You do not win EuroMillions prizes based on randomly selected mobile phone numbers or email addresses, including for games which you did not enter.
• EuroMillions will not ask you to pay any type of ‘fee’ to receive your prize.
• EuroMillions will not ask you to pay the ‘tax’ due on the win in advance of receiving a prize.

Clues to Identify a Scam

All of the points listed below are usually a good indication that the winning notification you have received is a scam:

• The email has been sent from a free webmail address (for example @hotmail.com, @outlook.com or @yahoo.com) or from an unrelated address that could have been compromised.
• The letter or email does not address you personally but instead starts with something vague like ‘Dear Winner’. This may not always be the case, however, so don’t assume the message is genuine just because it uses your name.
• Scam letters are often on poor quality, photocopied letterhead (although some will include a genuine business address in an attempt to provide legitimacy). It is worth noting that not all scam letters are of a low quality; scammers are constantly updating and improving technology so their messages may appear more legitimate.
• There is often a strict time limit to claim the ‘prize’. This is intended to put the potential victim under pressure and deter them from seeking advice or investigating the matter further.
• Confidentiality is often demanded as a ‘condition of winning’. Again, this is to deter the recipient from seeking the advice of friends or family who may be more familiar with this type of scam.
• The communication may contain complicated language and jargon, such as ticket numbers and ‘batch’ references in an attempt to give the document an ‘official’ feel.
• Poor spelling, grammar and syntax are usually a good indication that the letter or email is a scam.
• A photocopy of a cheque with your name on it may be contained within the communication to entice you into sending funds, something which real lotteries would never do.
• Some scams may claim to be from Euro-Millions.com, but please remember that we will never contact you under any circumstances to say you have won a prize. Any prize notifications that supposedly originate from Euro-Millions.com are fraudulent.

Online Winners

Amount Won	How to Claim
Up to £500	Prizes up to £500 are paid directly into your National Lottery account.
£501 — £30,000	This is paid to the debit card associated with your National Lottery account, but you need to confirm the payment should be made before it can be issued.
£30,001 — £50,000	Contact the National Lottery Customer Care team on 0333 234 44 33 and quote your ticket number. You will be paid either by cheque or directly into your bank account.
£50,001 and over	Contact the National Lottery Customer Care team on 0333 234 44 33 and quote your ticket number. Once your claim has been verified, you must collect your winnings in person. The National Lottery reserves the right to choose whether to issue your payment as a cheque or bank transfer.

Direct Debit and Pingit

For players who pay by Direct Debit, prizes of up to £50,000 are directly transferred into the bank or building society account associated with the payment. Pingit prizes are paid into your Pingit account. For sums worth more than £50,000, you must contact the Customer Care Team to arrange the receipt of your winnings.

Syndicates and Subscriptions

If you joined an online syndicate, or chose your EuroMillions numbers online through theLotter.com, then you will receive any prizes directly into your private account. For larger amounts, you will need to contact their support team to arrange collection of your winnings.

Save Money by Knowing Lotto Numbers to Avoid

Lotto players who select their lottery numbers thoughtlessly or foolishly are destined to lose even before the drawing takes place.
By knowing which number combinations and patterns to avoid, you’ll have an advantage over such players—and save money, too.

AVOID NUMBER COMBINATIONS THAT HAVE BEEN DRAWN BEFORE

Many players like to bet the numbers that have won someone else a big jackpot, and
by doing so, they are almost guaranteed NOT to win one themselves. In the
weekly EuroMillions drawing, a set of five numbers plus the two Luck Star balls
has a chance of being drawn once
every 1,344,598 years!!! This should also answer the question we are so often asked,
«Shouldn’t I keep playing the same set of numbers every week because they are due
to hit sometime?»

AVOID BETTING ONE LOTTO NUMBER GROUP

Never choose all five numbers from one number group, such as all single digits, or
all teens, or all 20’s, etc. All five winning numbers drawn from one group is
highly unlikely.

AVOID THE COMBINATION 1-2-3-4-5

The most popular set of numbers most often played is: 1-2-3-4-5. Thousands of
tickets are bought with this combination every drawing. The selection
is too far out of balance to come up in a random drawing.

AVOID PATTERN BETTING

Pattern betting is an even more popular method of marking bet slips. Patterns of
numbers marked in a row to make a straight line, either across the bet slip
vertically or diagonally get heavy play—which means sharing the prize with
others if the numbers are drawn as winners. Other designs such as patterns of
initials or numbers or crosses also get heavy play.

AVOID NUMBER MULTIPLES

Other popular combinations that get heavy play are the number multiples, especially
5-10-15-20-25 and 7-14-21-28-35.

AVOID ALL SAME LAST DIGITS

Many people like to play same last digits, such as 3-13-23-33, or all digits that
end in seven, or some other favorite lucky lottery number. Even four same last digits occur
in less than two-tenths of one percent of all drawings. Winning sets of numbers
with no more than one repeated last digit represent nearly 90 percent of all
drawings.

AVOID LOW NUMBER COMBINATIONS

The majority of Lotto players like to play the calendar numbers, such as birth
dates and anniversaries—and their children’s ages. This means that the most
heavily played numbers are 1 through 31. EuroMillions has 50 numbers. If you play
only the calendar numbers, you might be sharing your jackpot with dozens of other
winners. It’s not to say that you shouldn’t play your personal numbers if you feel these lucky numbers are good to play. But we recommend that you include a couple of high
numbers so that just in case your numbers do hit, you win a prize that’s worth
something.

Types of EuroMillions Scams

EuroMillions scams can turn the popular dream of winning a jackpot into a costly nightmare. Here are some of the most popular methods used by fraudsters.

The first point of contact is generally made using one of the following approaches:

Direct Mail

A letter is sent through the post informing the recipient that they have won a lottery prize and need to register their claim in order for their winnings to be processed.

Telephone

A ‘lottery official’ calls the potential victim to tell them about the ‘good news’ and, during the telephone call, will try to extract a payment and/or bank details under the pretence that a ‘processing fee’ or ‘tax’ needs to be paid.

Some scammers have taken to selling fake lottery tickets over the phone. They will ask for payment upfront, requiring the target to disclose their bank details, but the tickets are never sent as they do not exist.

Mobile

A text message is sent informing the recipient that their mobile number was entered into a raffle or lottery and selected at random as the winner.

Lottery Wheels

USE BALANCED WHEEL SYSTEMS

Balanced Wheeling Systems allow you to bet a large group of numbers (more than 5), play scientific combinations of that group of numbers, and get a specific minimum win guarantee.
Balanced Wheels force all the winning numbers that are in your group to come together to give you at least one prize if some or all of the winning numbers are in your chosen group.

It’s true that the more numbers you wheel, the easier it is to trap the winning
numbers in your chosen group. But to get the most leverage for your money, the optimum
number of numbers to wheel is not more than four or five numbers over HALF the numbers
in your game. To beat the odds of winning Euro Millions, your best chance to win is by
wheeling less than about 30 of the 50 total numbers.
Otherwise, you’ll be spending MORE money chasing a SMALLER guaranteed prize.
You benefit more by wheeling a carefully selected group of lotto numbers.

THE BEST WAY TO WHEEL ALL THE LOTTO NUMBERS IN YOUR GAME

Any one wheeling
system that covers ALL the numbers in the game is too spread out, making the win
guarantee not worth the wager. There are smart ways to wheel all the numbers in
the game by using Trap-by-Overlap and other wheeling strategies covered on pages
137 to 142 in Gail Howard’s lotto book, Lottery Master Guide.

Most of Smart Luck’s lottery winners used a Balanced Wheel in addition to her Smart Luck number selection methods.
You can use a FREE interactive Balanced Wheel System that won multiple jackpots.
Read about our lottery winners, too.
And when you win a jackpot with Smart Luck lotto systems, tell us about it so you can be added to Gail Howard’s growing list of winners.
If you don’t want your name publicized, we will honor that.

Combinatorial Patterns in EuroMillions

Let me describe a mathematical method that will catapult you to Euro Million’s success.  Deep within the finite sets of EuroMillions numbers are combinatorial patterns that should tell you the best combinations to play and the worst ones to avoid.

The image above describes the complete randomness of a lottery game. It shows that the lotteries are made up of independent random draws that, when put together with time, exhibit a mathematically deterministic behavior given the law of large numbers. See The Visual Analysis of a True Random Lottery with Deterministic Outcome

Let me clarify that we don’t need statistics to determine the best combinations in a lottery game.  Statistics is not the right tool to analyze a lottery game.

So if statistical analysis will not provide the best clue, what will?

Well, since the lottery has a finite structure, any question that we ask is a combinatorial and probability problem to solve rather than statistical.

So instead of statistics, we need the concept of combinatorics and probability theory.   These two mathematical tools will help predict the general outcome of the EuroMillions game from the perspective of the law of large numbers.

This prediction is possible because a truly random lottery follows the dictate of probability.

Again, we can explain this better from the context of combinatorial patterns.

For example, we can ask:

“What is the probability that the next winning numbers will be 1-2-3-4-5?”

To solve this question combinatorially, we can rephrase the question this way:

“What is the probability that the next winning numbers will be three-odds and two-even numbers?”

Can you see it? Composition matters.

And the composition of a combination is best described using a combinatorial pattern.  You can look at combinatorial patterns in many different ways.  There are simple patterns and there are Lotterycodex patterns.

We will talk about Lotterycodex patterns later (you don’t want to miss this section).

Let’s discuss the simple ones first.

Tickets Bought in Person

For both the main EuroMillions draw, and the additional HotPicks game, you can claim any winnings by following the procedures outlined below.

Amount Won	How to Claim
Up to £100	Take your ticket to any authorised retailer and have it scanned by a member of staff. Successful entries produce a ‘win sound’ and a receipt will be produced which will tell you the value of your prize.
£101 — £500	Some retailers can pay out amounts of up to £500 in cash at their discretion, but they are not obliged to do so. If a retailer cannot pay you can either return at an agreed time, go to another retailer or visit a designated National Lottery Post Office. However, if the retailer has already validated your ticket, you will have to return to the same establishment when they have the funds available.
£501 — £50,000	Visit a National Lottery Post Office or a regional payout centre and complete a claim form. Winnings will be paid by cheque, although Post Offices can issue up to £500 in cash out of any prize won.Any winnings of up to £50,000 can also be redeemed by post. Players must write their name and address on the back of their ticket and complete a claim form for prizes over £5,000. The postal address is: The National Lottery, Accounts Department, PO Box 287, Watford, WD18 9TT.
£50,001 and over	Contact the National Lottery directly by ringing 0333 234 50 50. Upon completing a claim form and presenting a valid form on identification, prizes can be received at an agreed location.

For more information about affiliated Post Offices and Regional Centres, visit the main UK Lottery Claims page.

Methods of redeeming non-cash prizes, such as those awarded on Mega Week draws, will be detailed in the specific rules created for the individual draw.