From September this year players of the EuroMillions lottery will have to pay €2.50 per ticket. At 50c extra it’s not the biggest price hike in history, but who wants to pay more for their lottery tickets? And on top of that is news of further changes to the game with an extra Lucky Star number to be added to the draw.
What will these changes mean for fans of Europe’s biggest lottery?
You’ll still need to pick five main numbers, but the Lucky Star numbers will be increased from 11 to 12. Your chances of winning the jackpot will fall from 1 in 117 million to 1 in 140 million. That being said, you still have a 1 in 13 chance of winning a EuroMillions prize. Small consolation as it all seems to be rather bad news.
But there is a silver lining in this lotto-cloud. First of all, the starting jackpot will be increased by €2 million, from €15 million to €17 million. Now that’s something to get excited about! Increasing the ticket price will also result in a higher prize pool. So despite this being an unpopular move, it could mean that there’ll be more money to play for.
While higher odds make it more difficult for you to hit the jackpot, it also makes it tougher for anyone else to win it. There’ll be more jackpot rollovers to look forward to. And that’s not so bad because the more often the jackpot rolls over—the bigger it gets! Could it be that the EuroMillions has made these changes in an attempt to break the Powerball’s $1.5 billion record jackpot? At least you can be quite sure it has nothing to do with Brexit.
There will also be a new European Millionaire Maker game on some draws, the first of which will be at the end of October. Like the UK’s Millionare Maker, codes will be automatically generated for each line played in the main game, and it will guarantee that 25 lucky players from the participating countries will win €1 Million!
And last but not least, the really good news is that there is finally going to be a EuroMillions Superdraw! The Superdraw will take place on Friday the 30th of September with a special jackpot of €130 million. That’s a massive €30 million more than the usual Superdraw starting jackpot of €100 million.
With these changes in place, you may start to see more jackpots reach the €100 million mark just from rolling over week-to-week. The maximum jackpot cap of €190 million still stands, but that could also change further down the line. If the jackpots continue to grow with increased ticket sales and more roll overs, who knows what could happen?
The planned changes will only be officially announced on the 24th of September, with the first draw under the new rules happening on Tuesday the 27th of September. For now, the ticket price remains the same and the jackpot is still big enough to change your life. Your chances of winning the jackpot are still one in 117 million. But if you don’t get yourself a EuroMillions ticket, they’ll drop to zero. So buy your EuroMillions tickets online now, and keep your fingers crossed!
