Lotteries are one of the oldest forms of gambling – with evidence of ancient rulers using them to make money for wars and palaces or the like. Nowadays, however, they’re sorely overlooked by many online and mobile gamblers who have more access to and choice of lotteries to play than ever before, but choose simply to stick to casinos, bingo or poker rooms.
While many people might buy a ticket for the National Lottery or its derivatives, most overlook the bountiful options offered elsewhere.
Drawn every Saturday and Wednesday the UK Lotto requires you to successfully pick six numbers from a pool of fifty-nine. You must match a minimum of two to win a prize and match all six (the five main numbers and the bonus ball) to win the major jackpot. The odds of picking all six numbers correctly in a National Lottery draw are 1 in 45,057,474. These are better odds than the EuroMillions jackpot, but not. Still, it is worth pointing out that for the main £3,000,000 draw you stand the chance to win £400,000 with rough odds of 1,080,000/1, which in jackpot terms makes it the best odds of all the lotteries.
In this post, we’ll introduce to you the all best UK lotteries where you can win big prizes, including some you might never have thought of.
National Lottery
By far the most famous draw available in the UK today, the National Lottery isn’t just a gambling contest – it’s an institution. Because the National Lottery offers excess earnings (of up to £33 million a week!) to charities and art projects throughout the UK, even when none of your numbers come up, you can rest assured the money you bought your ticket with has ended up helping someone else.
Of course, it’s not just about giving with the National Lottery. Whether you’re playing the main Lotto draw or one of its offshoots like Thunderball or Lotto Hot Picks, it offers the highest prizes and among the best probability of winning some cash in a draw of any UK Lottery.
Over six million people win on the National Lottery every week and although not all of them can become millionaires, with fifty £20,000 prizes available every week, you can still walk away with a life-changing sum of money without hitting the jackpot.
Play the National Lottery Because…
- It offers the highest UK only jackpot prizes
- You can win big despite not hitting the jackpot
- Your losses to go to charity or fund art projects
- There are multiple ways to win, including the Lotto Raffles draw
Euro Millions
An offshoot of the National Lottery brand – and almost as widely played in the UK – Euro Millions isn’t a UK Lottery in the strictest sense, as it’s networked throughout Europe. Originally a partnership between the British, French and Spanish authorities, players from 9 European nations can now play Euro Millions. Owing to this huge pool of players, the jackpot frequently breaks records.
Because the chances of winning the jackpot prize are over 1 in 100,000,000, the draw often sees rollovers taking the jackpot to astronomical proportions.
Don’t let those odds put you off though. Matching just two of the main numbers can land you a prize, and thousands of players every week enjoy non-jackpot wins, often in excess of £300,000.
Play Euro Millions Because…
- To have a shot at huge internationally networked jackpot prizes
- To be automatically entered into the Millionaire Raffle
- You’re happy to trade worse odds for higher rewards
- You want to take part in £100,000,000 super draws
Health Lottery
Launched by the Daily Express newspaper and aimed at getting funding for charities and health concerns, the Health Lottery is really a syndicate of local lotteries. This means that the excess funds can be fed back into the communities of those who buy tickets.
The Health lottery definitely pitches itself as much a charity fundraiser as a gambling game. This said, it’s rocketed in popularity since its 2011 launch, and now boasts some pretty generous jackpots.
The health lottery is a toss-up between two factors: the chances of winning any prize are super high and the chances of landing the top prize are better than any other on this list. However, the prizes are a lot lower, generally peaking at around £100,000.
Play the Health Lottery Because…
- You’ll only pay £1 for a ticket
- You want to support causes and health services near you
- You’ll settle for better odds and lower prizes
- It offers great odds for landing top prize
People’s Postcode Lottery
The first postcode lottery launched in the Netherlands in the late 1980s, but it wasn’t until 2005 that the concept made its way over here with the launch of the People’s Postcode Lottery.
The lottery is a subscription-based competition, where players register with their postcodes and can buy enter into up to four draws a month. Instead of individual winning prize tickets, the organizers randomly select a postcode to win, and the prize pool is shared among all players living within that postcode.
The distinct advantage of this kind of lottery is that you definitely cut down on the jealous neighbour factor. That said, if you’re the only person on your street not to have bought any tickets, you’re not going to be a happy bunny.
Play the People’s Postcode Lottery Because…
- You want a piece of a monthly £2,000,000 jackpot prize
- It shares the winnings between you and your neighbours
- You want to win up to £400,000 per player
- 50p from every ticket goes straight to charity
As you can see, there's a lottery for everyone in the UK. At the end of the day, picking one to play is up to you. You simply need to weigh up how much you're willing to spend, your chances of winning and the jackpots on offer.
As a rule of thumb, the bigger the jackpot, the more participants and so the less likely you are of winning- but that's all part of the fun. If you do win big, make sure to let us know.
Should You Stick Only to Your Local Lotteries?
Do you think your country has one of the best lotteries with one of the best jackpots? Think that the odds are entirely in your favor? Think again (unless you live in Spain)! Hundreds of lottery games exist in all parts of the world. Each one has its specific rules and specific chances of winning.
If you’re thinking about relocating and getting another citizenship in an attempt to become a quick millionaire, you’re probably not having the best strategy. Though the odds may be somewhat better for certain games, you’ll still be competing against millions of other players. Many factors determine lottery odds, and we don’t think that anyone has truly cracked the code yet. Otherwise, there’ll be rich and lucky lottery winners walking around everywhere (or at least in one country).
So, how do different lotteries compare and are there certain games that feature much more attractive lottery odds than others?
Lucky, Lucky Spaniards!
When it comes to lottery odds and jackpots, few people are luckier than Spaniards. The country’s Christmas lottery has the very descriptive name El Gordo (the fat one). This lottery has such great odds that nearly one million people end up being at least a bit richer than before buying a ticket.
In 2011 alone, El Gordo handed out generous awards, reaching a total amount of 2.5 billion euro (2.7 billion US dollars).
Here’s why the game is so great – you don’t have to choose numbers, you buy a ticket that already features five numbers on it. Anyone who has these five numbers will win a share of the grand total. Great way to make things simpler, Spain! We salute you!
The system is created in a way that many tickets featuring the same five-digit combination come in a series and are sold at the same place. This means that the lucky winners are quite often from the same town. How cool would it be to live in a city of millionaires, right?
A simple explanation does exist for generosity. El Gordo is held just once per year, during the holiday season. The whole idea of the lottery is to give people something cheerful and exciting before Christmas, which is why the odds of winning are so high.
Best Lottery To Play
Live in the US? Do You Know Which Game to Play?
If you’re a proud US citizen, you have a wonderful opportunity to increase your lottery odds by choosing the right game. Do you know which one it is? We’re not giving the information out yet. Come on, take a guess!
No? Ok, we’ll give you the information since we’re quite friendly. The answer is Mega Millions. It ranks among the world’s lottery games that have some of the best winning odds.
All that you have to do is spend just one dollar on a ticket. You can end up walking out with more than 300 million dollars. To participate in the game, you’ll have to choose five numbers in the range from one to 75 and a mega number in the range from one to 15.
Odds Of Winning Lotto
The amount will be heavily dependent on the number of people that have got the winning combination. If several people have guessed the five winning numbers, the jackpot will be split among all.
UK Lotto
We don’t know whether the Queen has anything to do with it, but the UK is one of the countries having the best jackpot winning odds. People that play the national lottery have a one in roughly 14 million chance of winning. In comparison, people playing Mega Millions have a one in 258 million chance of winning (which is still considered quite high in comparison to what other people have to through).
Keep in mind, however, that this system is set to change in October 2015. That’s when the odds are expected to change… for the worse. Instead of having to guess six out of 49, the enthusiasts interested in winning the jackpot will have to guess from 59 numbers. The simple change in 10 numbers will decrease the odds from the current number to one in 45 million.
So, if you want to win the UK lottery, the time is now. Once October 1 comes, the situation is going to become much, much different.
Honorary Mentions
In essence, the smaller the number of options you have to pick among, the higher the odds. This is why a few honorary mentions are due at the end of the article.
Australia’s PowerBall lotto features having to guess six out of 40 numbers for a maximum possible jackpot of 50 million Australian dollars. In Australia and Belgium, people have to guess six of 45 numbers. Canada’s Lotto Max has the candidates for the jackpot guessing seven of 49 numbers. Israel’s New Lotto is even better – six of 37.
So, if you feel discouraged about your lottery odds of winning – here are some of the worst possibilities. When it comes to having it bad, people in Italy are at a serious disadvantage. They have to guess six out of 90 numbers. The situation in Brazil is quite similar. Quina Lottery’s terms state that the jackpot will go to the person that guesses five out of 80 numbers.
No matter where you live, it’s still all about having a hunch. Don’t give up, even if you’re an Italian. There are things you can do to get a few million euros.