The Probability of Winning the Lottery

Due to legislation coming into effect in 2019, we can no longer offer lottery betting and as such some content may no longer be relevant.

Meghan Trainor is all about that bass. We're all about those odds. Knowing the probability of a given event is important because life is all about the probabilities. For example, since that last paragraph was all about the repetition there's a strong probability that song will end up stuck in your head now, whether you want it to be or not. If not congratulations, you've beaten the odds. Beating the odds for a lottery, however, well that's a bit tougher, but by knowing those odds at least you know what you're up against. So to help you we've prepared detailed odds on all our top lotteries, including an at-a-glace overview on jackpots plus all the winning odds for the Oz Lotto versus our top five most popular lotteries here at Lottoland.

Probability Of Hitting The Jackpot

The first question anyone wants to know is – how much can I win? Often times that's the only question lottery fans concern themselves with.

But if you're reading this then you want to scratch beneath the surface to find out not just how much the jackpot is, but also your odds of hitting it are.

The table below shows those odds plus your odds of winning any prize on some of our most popular lotteries. Don't ignore those prizes, as some of these 'secondary' prizes can wind up being pretty big.

Oz Lotto

The Oz Lotto is not available at Lottoland, but since it's the lottery most people are familiar with it serves as a useful yardstick for comparison with other lotteries. When the format of the Oz Lotto changed in 2005, its jackpot odds were raised considerably from around 8 million to over 45 million. The silver lining, however, was the potential for higher jackpots.

Irish Lotto

As you may know, the Irish Lotto went through a format change in 2015, resulting in higher jackpots but also higher jackpot odds. That being said, the Irish Lotto's new jackpot odds are still extremely favourable when compared with other European lotteries – take the relatively high jackpots into account and it's a great all-rounder lottery.

EuroJackpot

EuroMillions is still Europe's largest lottery, but it's has some stiff competition.  EuroJackpot is hugely popular in Germany and Scandinavia and is starting to gain in popularity here now too as it offers sizable jackpots at better odds than EuroMillions. EuroJackpot is capped at a top prize of €90 million (approx. $143 million AUD), a sum that has been won three times so far. 

EuroMillions

EuroMillions' popularity is as high as ever, thanks, in no small part, to its consistently high jackpots. Of course, with high jackpots comes high jackpot odds. But just how high are the odds of EuroMillions?  This jackpot is capped at a maximum of €190 million (approx. $300 million AUD) and tends to generate a lot of excitement when it starts to rise above the €100 million mark.

PowerBall

As with both the Irish and UK Lottos, America's PowerBall also went through a major format change in 2015. The changes increased the jackpot odds considerably, but also allowed for a bigger prize pool and more rollovers. The result was a record-breaking jackpot in January, the biggest lottery jackpot of all time, worth a staggering $1.586 billion, or approximately $2.05 billion AUD.

MegaMillions

Coke Vs. Pepsi, Mac Vs. PC, Marvel Vs. DC – there've been lots of brand rivalries over the years. In the lottery world, however, the biggest rivalry is between the two American super-lotteries. PowerBall's format change was made precisely to unseat MegaMillions who had held the biggest jackpot title from March 2012 until January 2016. Now MegaMillions are striking back with changes to their format which will see their jackpots rise high enough to challenge the records of their US rivals. 

That Little Bit Extra

Every lottery has its own unique set of odds, which depend on the amount and range of numbers players have to pick. For most people the specifics aren't of any interest, but for some the exact figures are all-important, so we're going to tell you how to figure them out exactly. It's time to get technical, maths-phobes look away now.

STEP 1: IDENTIFY THE BASICS
To work out the exact odds of any lottery requires two things: the total amount of balls that appear in each draw, and the range of numbers that players have to choose from.
With these two bits of information you have everything you need to calculate the odds, except a calculator of course.

STEP 2: CRUNCH THE NUMBERS
The process is simpler than you may have expected, but it does take some big calculations.

To better explain the process, we'll be using a number of examples. If you have a lottery with 6 balls ranging between 1 and 50, you would proceed as follows:

Equation 1: 6/50 = 0.12 (this is the likelihood that one of the first 6 picks will match with your first number)
Equation 2: 5/49 = ~0.10 (this is the likelihood that one of the 5 remaining balls will match with your second number)
Equation 3: 4/48 = 0.08 (the probability of ball 4 matching your third number)
Equation 4: 3/47 = ~0.06 (probability that the 3rd remaining ball will match your fourth number)
Equation 5: 2/46 = ~0.04 (probability of one of the last two picks matching your fifth number)
Equation 6: 1/45 = 0.02 (the likelihood of the final pick matching your last number)
Note: ~ means an approximation 

Essentially, your first equation is the highest available number in the lottery's range divided by the total amount of balls that are drawn, then proceed down in a descending order until you reach number 1.

STEP 3: PROBABILITY
To find your overall chance of winning, simply multiply the results of all the equations made in Step 2 together, and this will give the probability of winning the jackpot.

For our example, the answer would be ~0.0000000629.

STEP 4: TELL ME THE ODDS
The final step is to simply divide the number generated in Step 3 by 1.

1 / 0.0000000629 = 15,890,700

Therefore the odds on you winning a 6 ball lottery with a number range of 1 to 50 is 1 : 15,890,700

WHAT ABOUT BONUS BALLS?
So, most lotteries have one or two bonus balls to factor in when working out your odds. While it's a little more time consuming, it's not difficult once you know how. Returning to our 6 ball lottery with a number range of 1-50, you would repeat Step 2 again, just as before. Then you would need to work out the bonus ball equation based on how many there are per draw, and what numbers are available to players.

For this example, we'll base it off the EuroMillions draw, meaning players make 2 picks between 1 and 11.

Bonus Ball Equation 1: 2/11 = ~0.18

Bonus Ball Equation 2: 1/10 = 0.1

Then simply repeat Step 3 and 4 to give the final odds.

For a great breakdown of the various lotteries available on Lottoland, including the ones with the best jackpot odds, check out our jackpot games.