The EuroMillions lottery is a transnational lottery that offers the biggest jackpots all over the continent. Draws of the lottery are held on every Tuesday and Friday and jackpots start at €17,000,000 and can go as high as the cap of €190,000,000. Apart from this massive prize, the lottery also comprises of 12 other prize divisions, which are also quite substantial. Avid lottery players can choose to play EuroMillions from nine European countries including Switzerland, France, Belgium, Ireland, Austria, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom.
In February 2004, Spain, France and the UK came together to launch the EuroMillions lottery and a few months later, the other countries also joined in. The first draw was conducted on 13th February, 2004 and the first jackpot was taken home by a French lottery player. Some changes have been made to the lottery since its introduction such as the limit or cap to the jackpot in 2009. The second change was made in 2011 when lottery operators decided to hold another weekly draw on Tuesday. In the same year, some changes to the format were also made in the form of a new winning category for players matching two main numbers.
The Lucky Star numbers also saw their guessing range increase from 9 to 11. The changes were celebrated with the organization of the first Superdraw, which later became legendary, which had a jackpot of worth €100 million. In September 2016, changes were made once again as the Lucky Stars guessing range was increased to 12 and the starting jackpot was increased to €17 million.
How to Play?
There are two fields on the EuroMillions lottery ticket; one table that offers you numbers between 1 and 50 and another one with additional numbers i.e. Lucky Stars that have to be chosen between 1 and 12. In the first table, you have choose five numbers whereas 2 Lucky Stars have to be chosen. If you have picked the EuroMillions winning numbers, you get to take home the jackpot.
Superdraws
A special EuroMillionsSuperdraw is announced by EuroMillions from time to time, which replaces the jackpot and offers a guaranteed winning amount of €100 million. As far as playing the Superdraw is concerned, it is played in exactly the same way as a regular EuroMillions draw; five main numbers and 2 Lucky Numbers are chosen by the players. If there is no winner, the jackpot continues to rollover until it reaches the cap of €190 million and remains so for four drawings. If still unclaimed, it is rolled down and distributed amongst winners of the next tier.
Millionaire Maker
Those who play the Euromillions lottery also have the chance of entering the European Millionaire Maker raffle. It is staged on special occasions in the year and creates 25 millionaires across Europe. Lottery players purchasing their EuroMillions ticket at the time of the Millionaire Maker are automatically entered into the raffle and have the opportunity of winning a prize of €1 million if they are really lucky.