UK Lotto vs Irish Lotto
With one play, the UK Lotto jackpot has a chance of 1 in 22,528,737 and the Irish Lotto jackpot 1 in 8,145,060. UK Lotto is 2.8 times harder.
How this works
- What it does
- This page puts two lotteries side by side: the chance of the top prize and of any prize, the price, what a play pays back on average, and what a year of playing costs.
- How to use it
- Nothing to type. Read across each row; the game names lead to the full odds page of each.
- How to read the result
- A harder jackpot is not always the worse deal and an easier one is not a good one: look at the chance for the same money and at the payback. Both lose on average.
Side by side
| Item | UK Lotto | Irish Lotto |
|---|---|---|
| Numbers | 6 of 59 | 6 of 45 |
| Price of a play | £2 | €2 |
| Draws a week | 2 | 3 |
| Top prize, with one play | 1 in 22,528,737 | 1 in 8,145,060 |
| Any prize | 1 in 4.88 | 1 in 25.40 |
| Wait for the top prize, one play every draw | 220,000 years | 52,000 years |
| A play pays back on average | £0.773 (39%) | €0.567 (28%) |
| Jackpot at which a play pays back its price | £28.6 million | €14 million |
| A year of one play every draw | £209 | €313 |
The payback is at the smallest jackpot of £1 million in UK Lotto and the smallest jackpot of €2 million in Irish Lotto, before tax. A larger jackpot raises it; each game's "is it worth it?" page shows it for any amount you type. A dash means a game with no jackpot.
What it means
In neither game does a play pay back its price on average, unless the jackpot reaches the amount in the table, and even then a shared jackpot pulls it back down. The likeliest result, in every draw of both, is that you win nothing.
Checked against the official figures
Every figure is the one on each game's odds page, worked out from the official rules and checked against the operator's figures. The sources, and the date they were read, are listed there.