Name
Operator
Type
Country
Website
Founded
Lottorating

Lotto
Multi-state lottery via national operators
Multi-country lottery
Europe
National operator sites, e.g. lotto.de
2012
30/50

Introduction

Overview

Eurojackpot is a more recent addition to the international lottery scene having launched in 2012.

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Where Available

It is available in 16 countries in Europe: Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Finland, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Holland, Norway, Spain and Sweden. Note that Spain is a member of both the eurojackpot and euromillions lotteries. Whilst it is smaller than the older euromillions lottery it has actually a greater reach of 270m players (versus 218m for euromillions).

Date and time of draws

This is one of few lotteries that only has one draw per week: on a Friday at 8pm CET.

No. of balls and how to hit the jackpot

As with many large multi state lotteries, the number of balls and permutations has been increased recently in order to increase the headline jackpot size (through more rollovers). There are now 50 main balls and 10 bonus balls to choose from.

Other Variations

There are no variations on this game.

Ticket Price

Each ticket for the eurojackpot costs €2, the same price as the euromillions.

Tickets Sold Per Draw

The Eurojackpot is in the top 10 world's largest lotteries with average ticket sales of around 12m per week (one draw per week).

Sales per draw

Despite its greater reach, eurojackpot sells fewer tickets per draw per capita at 0.05 tickets per head vs 0.15 for euromillions. This is mainly due to the fact that the eurojackpot is a newer lottery (note that the comparison is of tickets per draw not tickets per week so the number of draws shouldn't make a difference). There may be other reasons too such as the size of jackpots, propensity to play lottery draws in the countries offering eurojackpot etc.

Minimum jackpot

The minimum jackpot here is a very generous €10m and it also grows by around €7m per draw.

Average jackpot

An average jackpot on a given draw will be around €28m so if you're playing on subscription you won't be disappointed!

Average jackpot when hit

With €7m added each draw, the rollover increases very fast on the eurojackpot and the average size of a jackpot when it is hit will be around €47m. In the last 12 months it has averaged nearer €40m but only because it has been hit a little more frequently than the odds would suggest.

Highest jackpot ever

The highest jackpot ever hit was for €90m in 2015 (which is the maximum it can reach). The way payouts are structured means that it is capped at €90m with any further jackpot increases being rolled down to lower level prize tiers.

Jackpot winners per year

We would expect the jackpot to be hit around 7x per year even though in the last 12 months it has been hit a dozen times (resulting in smaller jackpots than you would expect too).

Contribution to the jackpot

Jackpots are meant to account for around 36% of the prize payout.

Introduction

The potential returns to players in the form of prizes will vary by the size of jackpot in each draw.

RTP when first seeded

Average RTP

If playing on subscription you're looking at a RTP of 0.47.

RTP when jackpot typically hit

When the jackpot gets to the size where it is most likely to be hit (€47m), your return per euro is around 0.52 (or 1.04 euros per ticket).

Best RTP

There is a cap on eurojackpot jackpots of 90m euros. At this level, the RTP, before taking into account the possibilities of sharing, is around 0.74, i.e. reasonable but not amazing. The nice thing about this lottery is that after the 90m figure has been reached, all future contributions to the jackpot are instead filtered into the second tier prizes. In this sense, the RTP still improves even if the top jackpot figure does not. In effect, the second prize which is usually around €650k will soon hit €1m and players will thus get better odds of hitting a prize of more than a million.

Annuity vs Cash

On European lotteries there are generally no annuity vs cash options. The figure that is advertised is what is paid out, and usually it is tax-free too, although this will vary by country in which you are playing.

Jackpot alerts

The eurojackpot is interesting for a number of reasons. Jackpots are capped but the extra rollovers thereafter cause the second tier prize to become most interesting, e.g. €1m euros on a 1 in 5m chance. A higher percentage of ticket sales also goes into the jackpot pool when compared to euromillions too. This is why eurojackpot jackpots will often be larger than those of euromillions, even though the odds of hitting the big one on euromillions is higher. Overall the RTP isn't bad at between 40% and 70% of your stake, depending on the size of a jackpot, which makes it better than the euromillions. If it does reach €90m, then I'd still be tempted to wait another couple of weeks before playing such that the overall pool (and second tier prizes for example) are a bit beefier. From a recent €90m win it looks like your chances of sharing the jackpot at that level are around 1 in 3. I doubt you would see a jackpot pool including the rolled down amounts of €220m but if you do, the odds start to fall in your favour. Until then, it's a good sized lottery with reasonable payouts but don't be tempted to start buying up all the tickets just yet.

Pros

Large jackpots and generously seeded. No taxes (with exceptions) and no annuity type marketing of the real jackpot size - what you see is what you get. Top jackpot is a bit 'easier' to hit than euromillions. Customer friendly roll down of excess jackpots to lower tiers is good leading to even more generous second tier prizes.

Cons

Only once a week so doesn't grow as rapidly as it might. Jackpot cap a bit low: doesn't even give the impression that there may be value there.

Verdict

A reasonable product to play on a subscription basis but don't expect too many jackpot alerts where the size of the jackpot prompts you to buy a ticket as a good investment. For where to play, check out our agents page.