Lottery Odds Ireland: Lotto, EuroMillions, Scratch Cards

Lottery odds in Ireland: Lotto, EuroMillions and scratch cards

Matching six numbers on the Lotto is a 1 in 10,737,573 shot. EuroMillions is 1 in 139,838,160, which is roughly thirteen times harder again. A scratch card looks like a different proposition entirely, and in one way it is, but the number printed on the back is not the number that tells you what you are getting.

None of it is hidden. The National Lottery publishes the odds for every prize tier, and for scratch cards it publishes the win odds, the top prize odds and the share of sales paid back in prizes. It is just not the part of the ticket anyone reads.

Here are the real figures, what they look like in euro, and the governance point that catches people out: the National Lottery sits completely outside the remit of Ireland's gambling regulator.

The short version

• Lotto: 1 in 10,737,573 for the jackpot, 1 in 29 for any prize at all.

• EuroMillions: 1 in 139,838,160 for the jackpot, 1 in 13 for any prize.

• Daily Million: 1 in 3,262,623 for the fixed €1 million top prize, 1 in 28 for any prize in a single draw.

• Scratch cards: overall win odds sit between roughly 1 in 3 and 1 in 4, but a win includes getting your stake back. Top prize odds across the current range run from 1 in 750,000 to 1 in 1,750,000.

• The number that actually matters is the prize payout percentage, and it is published on every scratch card's own page.

• Different regulator. The National Lottery is not covered by the Gambling Regulation Act 2024. It answers to the Regulator of the National Lottery, not the GRAI.

• No tax on the prize. That holds for a €3 Lotto win and for a €1 million scratch card alike.

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The odds on Lotto, EuroMillions and Daily Million

Lotto asks you to pick six numbers from 1 to 47. There are 10,737,573 ways to do that, and a single line covers exactly one of them.

The jackpot gets the headline, but the 1 in 29 figure for winning anything is where most tickets land, and it is worth knowing what it pays. Matching three numbers is a 1 in 54 shot and returns €9. Matching two plus the bonus is 1 in 72 and returns €3. The tier below the jackpot, five numbers plus the bonus, is 1 in 1,789,596 and pays €100,000. The minimum jackpot is €2 million and it rolls over until somebody takes it.

EuroMillions works differently. Five main numbers from 50, plus two Lucky Stars from a separate pool of 12. That is 2,118,760 combinations of main numbers multiplied by 66 combinations of Lucky Stars, which lands on 139,838,160. The minimum jackpot is €17 million, and a group of European countries feeds the one prize pool, which is why the odds look the way they do.

The overall odds on EuroMillions look better than Lotto's at 1 in 13, and there is a plain reason for it. Matching two main numbers and nothing else already pays, at 1 in 22, so the bottom tier is doing nearly all the work.

Daily Million is the shortest of the three. Six numbers from 1 to 39 gives 3,262,623 combinations, the top prize is a fixed €1 million rather than a rolling jackpot, and there are two draws a day. Any prize in a single draw is 1 in 28, or 1 in 14 if you add the Plus draw.

EuroDreams, Lotto 5-4-3-2-1, TellyBingo and the Millionaire Raffle publish their odds the same way, with one exception. Raffle odds are not fixed, because they move with how many tickets are sold in that draw.

What those numbers actually look like

Odds this long stop meaning much as numbers, so it helps to turn them into time.

Play one line in both Lotto draws every week and you cover 104 lines a year. At 1 in 10,737,573, you would expect to match six about once every 103,000 years. Do the same on EuroMillions and the wait stretches to roughly 1.3 million years. Those are averages rather than schedules, and somebody wins most weeks, but that is the scale of the thing.

Buying more lines shortens the odds proportionately and does nothing else. A hundred lines in one Lotto draw is 1 in 107,376: a hundred times better, and still a hundred thousand to one.

Nothing else shortens them. The Regulator's own guidance says it plainly: the odds are identical whether you take a Quick Pick or choose your own numbers, whether you play online or in a shop, and whether you play once or every week. A number that has not come up in months is not due. The draw has no memory of the last one.

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Scratch cards: the odds are on the back for a reason

A scratch card works on a completely different principle to a draw, and that difference is why the odds are printed on the card at all.

A draw is settled after you buy. A scratch card is settled before. The whole print run is generated with a fixed number of winning tickets built into it, so the overall odds are just the total number of cards divided by the number carrying a prize. Scratching is only finding out.

Here is what that looks like across the current range, using the figures the National Lottery publishes on each game's own page in early August 2026:

• €1 card: wins something 1 in 3.95 times, pays back 61% of sales in prizes, top prize odds 1 in 1,750,000.

• €5 card: 1 in 3.75, 66% payout, top prize odds 1 in 1,000,000.

• €20 card: 1 in 3.29, 71% payout, top prize odds 1 in 750,000.

Those two figures pull in opposite directions. The win frequency is far more flattering than it sounds, because a card that wins can be a card that hands back the euro you paid for it. Spend €100 on €1 cards and roughly 25 will win something, but only about €61 comes back in total. The payout percentage is the honest number and the win odds are the marketing one.

The dearer cards genuinely do pay back a higher percentage and carry shorter top prize odds, but that is not a loophole. You are staking twenty times as much per card, so the amount you expect to lose per card goes up even as the percentage improves. On the €20 card, 71% back means €5.80 gone per card on average.

One habit is worth thirty seconds. Top prizes are often claimed long before a game is withdrawn, and the National Lottery publishes how many remain in each game, listed by the game number printed at the bottom of the card. A card whose top prizes are gone is still on the shelf.

And the thing almost everybody gets wrong: odds of 1 in 3 do not mean three cards will produce a win. The prizes are scattered at random through the print run. Three cards is three separate chances, not a guarantee.

Where the rest of your euro goes

The prize payout is not a commercial secret. It is set by statute and by the operating licence, and both are published.

The National Lottery Act 2013 requires prizes to average at least 50% of sales across the portfolio of games each year. The licence then fixes the good causes share at 65% of whatever is left once prizes are paid.

The Regulator works the split through on Lotto. Of every €1 spent on a Lotto ticket, 52 cent funds prizes, 31.2 cent is retained for good causes, 6 cent goes to the retailer in commission, and the remaining 10.8 cent goes to the operator to cover the cost of running the game.

Across the whole range in 2024, prizes came to 57.0% of sales and good causes to 28.0%, both derived from the operator's audited accounts.

So the lottery returns roughly 57 cent in the euro. For comparison, an online slot typically returns somewhere in the mid-90s as a percentage of stakes over the long run. On pure value, the lottery is the most expensive gambling product most people in Ireland ever buy.

We'd rather say that plainly than dress it up, and it is not really a criticism. A large part of the gap is the good causes money, which is the entire reason the thing exists. But it does mean a ticket is closer to a purchase than a punt, and the sane way to think about the price is that you are buying a couple of days of maybe.

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The National Lottery answers to a different regulator

Ireland's Gambling Regulatory Authority has been licensing remote bookmakers since 1 July 2026, and will license gaming and certain other lotteries in time. The National Lottery is not in that system and is not going to be. Citizens Information states it directly: the National Lottery is not covered by the new legislation and is separately regulated.

It sits instead under the National Lottery Act 2013, which created a standalone statutory office, the Regulator of the National Lottery, to hold the operator to account. The games are run by Premier Lotteries Ireland under a 20-year licence awarded in 2014.

Three practical consequences follow. The National Gambling Exclusion Register, whenever it commences, will let a person exclude themselves from GRAI-licensed operators. The National Lottery does not hold a GRAI licence, so anyone planning to treat the register as a single switch should know that going in.

The advertising watershed in the same Act has not commenced either, and when it does it will bind GRAI licensees. Again, not the National Lottery.

The ban on paying for gambling by credit card, which did commence on 5 February 2026, works the same way. It binds GRAI licensees. The National Lottery removed credit cards as an online payment method back in 2020, six years earlier and under its own regime rather than that one.

Which is the point worth holding onto. Separate does not mean lightly regulated. Online play carries mandatory spending limits per day, week and month, and the Regulator has taken enforcement action to keep those systems working. Online self-exclusion has been available since 2014, mandatory identity and age verification for online accounts since 2022, and since 2023 a player can lock themselves out of instant win games while still playing the draws. Scratch cards and instant win games have had to display the odds of winning the top prize since 2021.

Several of those landed years before the wider Irish market got anything equivalent. What none of them does is change the odds.

Your winnings are tax-free

There is no tax on a lottery prize in Ireland. Section 613(2) of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 puts winnings from betting, lotteries, sweepstakes and games with prizes outside the scope of chargeable gains, and recreational play carries no income tax charge either. A €3 Lotto prize and a €1 million scratch card are treated exactly the same way.

One correction while we're here, because it circulates constantly. The 2% figure people quote as a tax on winnings is betting duty. It is an excise duty paid by licensed bookmakers on stakes, it goes to the Revenue Commissioners rather than coming out of a winner's pocket, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the National Lottery.

What is taxable is what happens next. Once the prize is in your account it is ordinary money, so interest on it is taxed under the normal rules, as are investment returns. For anything substantial, that is a conversation with a qualified adviser rather than an article.

Keeping it in proportion

The Regulator is clear that lottery products are not risk free, and that scratch cards and online instant win games carry more risk than the draw games. The result is instant, there is a high proportion of small prizes, near misses are common, and another card can be played straight away. Research also indicates that people under 25 are more susceptible to gambling problems.

The guidance the Regulator points to is short. Not too much, not too often, not too many products, and not at all if moderating is not working. Chasing losses, spending more than is comfortably affordable, and playing more often or for more money over time are warning signs rather than bad luck.

Every National Lottery ticket and scratch card carries a helpline number on the reverse, and self-assessment tools are available for anyone who wants to check where they stand.

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Frequently asked questions

What are the odds of winning the Lotto in Ireland?

1 in 10,737,573 for the jackpot, matching all six main numbers from 47. The odds of winning any Lotto prize, across all eight tiers, are 1 in 29.

What are the odds of winning EuroMillions?

1 in 139,838,160 for the jackpot, matching five main numbers from 50 and both Lucky Stars from 12. Any prize is 1 in 13, largely because matching two main numbers already pays, at 1 in 22.

What are the odds on Daily Million?

1 in 3,262,623 for the fixed €1 million top prize, from six numbers out of 39. Any prize in a single draw is 1 in 28, or 1 in 14 if the Plus draw is added.

What do the odds on the back of a scratch card mean?

They are the total number of cards printed divided by the number carrying any prize, so "average 1 in 3 wins cash" means a single card has a 1 in 3 chance of winning something, including your stake back. It does not mean three cards will produce a win.

Can I improve my chances of winning?

No. The odds are fixed per line or per card, and are unaffected by Quick Pick versus chosen numbers, playing online versus in a shop, or how often you play. A number that has not appeared recently is no likelier to be drawn.

Do I pay tax on lottery winnings in Ireland?

No. Winnings from lotteries are not chargeable gains under section 613(2) of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997, and recreational play carries no income tax charge. Interest earned on the money afterwards is taxable as normal.

Does the GRAI regulate the National Lottery?

No. The National Lottery is not covered by the Gambling Regulation Act 2024. It is regulated separately by the Regulator of the National Lottery under the National Lottery Act 2013, and operated by Premier Lotteries Ireland under licence.

Safer gambling: a lottery ticket is entertainment with a price on it, never a plan for getting out of trouble. If gambling is causing difficulty for you or someone you know, the National Gambling Helpline is free and confidential on 1800 936 725, 24 hours a day.