The Euromillions lottery offers twelve
different levels of prize, and all of these are funded
by the money that people spend to buy their Euromillions
lottery tickets. But how does your entry fee get divided
between the various prize tiers? This is a question
that occurs to many players, so to settle the matter
we will now explain the breakdown for anyone losing
sleep over it.
|
A Euromillions lottery ticket costs €2
(roughly equivalent to £1.50 in the UK) and the
first slice of this entry fee goes to the lottery company
operating the game in each country. It obviously costs
money to run the Euromillions game, and the companies
which operate lottery naturally exist to make a profit,
so 50% of the money paid for a ticket goes directly
to the operator selling it. For example, if you are
playing in France, €1 of every €2 ticket you buy will
go to the Francaise des Jeux.
The remaining 50% of ticket fees from each participating
country goes into something called the Common Prize
Fund. This, as the name suggests, is basically a huge
pot of money out of which all Euromillions prizes are
paid. The twelve tiers of prize, the odds of winning
and the percentage of the Common Prize Fund allocated
to each, are as follows:
Prize Level |
Matches |
% Prize Fund |
Jackpot |
match 5 + 2 |
22 |
Tier 2 |
match 5 + 1 |
7.4 |
Tier 3 |
match 5 + 0 |
2.1 |
Tier 4 |
match 4 + 2 |
1.5 |
Tier 5 |
match 4 + 1 |
1 |
Tier 6 |
match 4 + 0 |
0.7 |
Tier 7 |
match 3 + 2 |
1 |
Tier 8 |
match 3 + 1 |
5.1 |
Tier 9 |
match 2 + 2 |
4.4 |
Tier 10 |
match 3 + 0 |
4.7 |
Tier 11 |
match 1 + 2 |
10.1 |
Tier 12 |
match 2 + 1 |
24 |
Booster Fund |
|
16 |
If you add up all of these percentages, you get a grand
total of 84%. So what happens to the remaining 16% of
the Common Prize Fund, you may ask? Well, it goes into
a separate fund known as the Booster Fund. This Booster
Fund is used to boost the jackpot level – often in weeks
where the jackpot needs topping up to provide the guaranteed
minimum of €15,000,000.
So there you have it – a definite explanation of how
your Euromillions entry fee is divided between the lottery
operator, the twelve tiers of the game itself, and that
all-important Booster Fund.
|
