EuroMillions vs Eurojackpot: Which Is Better?

By Ryan · Published 2 November 2026

Every Tuesday and Friday night, two giant lotteries are drawn in Europe within an hour of each other: EuroMillions in Paris, and Eurojackpot in Helsinki. Between them, they're played in 27 countries, and their Jackpots regularly climb past €100 million. Not exactly pocket money!

So which one should you play? As it turns out, you might not get to choose! And when you look closely, they have a lot more in common than you'd think. We went through every draw since 25 March 2022, that's 481 EuroMillions and 481 Eurojackpot draws, to compare them side by side. Let's find out!

1. EuroMillions and Eurojackpot at a glance
2. Can you choose which one to play?
3. Which is easier to win?
4. How often is the Jackpot won?
5. Which Jackpot gets bigger?
6. Which pays back more?
7. So, EuroMillions or Eurojackpot?

EuroMillions and Eurojackpot at a glance

Here's something you might not expect: they draw exactly the same numbers! In both games you pick 5 numbers from 50, plus 2 extra numbers from 12, called Lucky Stars in EuroMillions and Euro Numbers in Eurojackpot. Eurojackpot switched to these numbers in March 2022, and they've been twins ever since. Well, almost.

* In most countries. EuroMillions costs £2.50 in the UK and CHF 3.50 in Switzerland, and some countries add a compulsory extra game to the price.

The differences are in the price, how big the Jackpot can get, and the smaller prizes: EuroMillions has 13 prize divisions, while Eurojackpot has 12. And EuroMillions is about to change: a price rise to €3, a new prize division and a higher Jackpot cap have been announced, but at the time of writing they haven't started yet.

Can you choose which one to play?

Unless you live in Spain, not really! Each lottery is only sold in its member countries, and only Spain sells both. EuroMillions is played in 9 countries, mostly in western Europe, while Eurojackpot is played in 19 countries, from Germany and Italy to the Nordic and Baltic countries.

A few neighbours can join in through these countries' lotteries, like Monaco and Andorra for EuroMillions. Visiting another country? You can buy a ticket while you're there, but keep it safe: prizes can only be claimed in the country where the ticket was bought.

What if you live further afield? From Australia, you can't buy an official ticket online. The services that let you play anyway sell their own lotteries based on the European results, and those are banned from 1 January 2027. We cover the details in playing overseas lotteries from Australia.

Which is easier to win?

With exactly the same numbers, the odds of winning the Jackpot are exactly the same too: 1 in 139,838,160. If you played one line in every draw, twice a week, you would wait on average 1.3 million years to win the Jackpot. Better pack a lunch!

There are two catches though. A Eurojackpot line is cheaper: with €10, you can play 5 Eurojackpot lines but only 4 EuroMillions lines. Euro for euro, your chances of winning the Jackpot are 25% better with Eurojackpot!

On the other hand, EuroMillions pays a small prize for matching just 2 numbers, which Eurojackpot doesn't. That's why you're much more likely to win something with EuroMillions: 1 in 13.1, against 1 in 31.7 for Eurojackpot.

Want to see what those odds feel like? Our EuroMillions and Eurojackpot simulators let you play thousands of draws with virtual money, and keep count of how much you would have spent.

How often is the Jackpot won?

With the same odds, you would expect the Jackpots to be won just as often. But the more tickets are sold, the more likely it is that someone picks the winning numbers, and that's where the two lotteries differ. Here's what the draws tell us.

* The median: half of the Jackpots were won faster than this, and half took longer.

Talk about twins: both Jackpots have been won exactly 70 times! On average, someone takes home the Jackpot every 6.6 draws in EuroMillions, and every 6.8 draws in Eurojackpot.

The longest EuroMillions run in our data went 21 draws without a winner, from 8 April 2025 until 17 June 2025, when a single lucky ticket won the €250M Jackpot. That's 10 weeks without a winner!

The longest Eurojackpot run in our data went 18 draws without a winner, from 8 October 2024 until 6 December 2024, when 2 lucky tickets shared the €120M Jackpot. That's 8 weeks without a winner!

Which Jackpot gets bigger?

Unlike in the US, European Jackpots can't keep growing forever: both lotteries have a cap. Here is every Jackpot in our data. Each climb is a run of draws without a winner, and each flat line at the top is the Jackpot stuck at its cap.

The EuroMillions Jackpot is capped at €250M. The cap used to go up by €10M every time the Jackpot reached it, from €200M in 2020, until it hit the maximum of €250M in 2025. Once the Jackpot gets there, it can stay at the cap for up to 4 draws, while the extra money goes to the next prize down. If nobody wins on the 5th draw, it's a "Must Be Won" draw: the whole Jackpot rolls down to the next prize that has winners, usually matching 5 numbers and 1 Lucky Star. Somebody is getting very lucky!

The Eurojackpot cap is lower, at €120M, but there's no time limit: the Jackpot stays at the cap until someone wins it, and the extra money goes to the second prize instead.

With its lower cap, Eurojackpot hits the ceiling a lot more often: 30 draws at €120M, against 11 for EuroMillions.

Here's some good news: unlike in the US, the Jackpot is paid as a lump sum, not an annuity. And many of the countries playing don't tax lottery prizes at all, like the UK, France and Germany. Others, like Spain and Italy, do take a cut of bigger prizes.

The biggest Jackpots won

Which pays back more?

The Jackpot gets all the attention, but most winning tickets win one of the smaller prizes. In both lotteries, those prizes are a share of a prize pool, so they change from draw to draw. Using the prizes actually paid, how much comes back from them for every euro spent?

* As if the Jackpot was never shared.

Even with its lower price, Eurojackpot's smaller prizes pay back more for every euro spent. Either way, you get back well under a euro for every euro spent. That's how lotteries fund their Jackpots, running costs and good causes.

So, EuroMillions or Eurojackpot?

For most people, the choice is already made: it depends on where you live! But if you do get to choose:

• For the best chance at the Jackpot for your money: Eurojackpot. The odds are the same, but a line costs €2 instead of €2.50.
• For the best chance of winning something: EuroMillions, thanks to its prize for matching just 2 numbers.
• For the biggest Jackpots: EuroMillions, with a cap more than twice as high.

And whichever you choose, remember that with odds of 1 in 140 million, a lottery ticket is best enjoyed as a bit of fun rather than a plan for retirement.

Still can't decide? Play both for free with virtual money in our EuroMillions and Eurojackpot simulators, or see how they compare with the US giants in Powerball vs Mega Millions.