How EuroMillions Plus Increases Your Chances of Winning
Last Updated: Tuesday 27th September 2022, 09:19 am
EuroMillions Plus gives you the chance to win up to €500,000 every Tuesday and Friday night, in addition to any prizes you might receive on the main game. The jackpot has already been given away nine times this year, so why wouldn’t you add the Plus option when playing?
How EuroMillions Plus Works
To play EuroMillions Plus on top of EuroMillions, you just need to mark the ‘Plus’ option on your playslip and pay an additional €1 per line. The five main numbers you selected for the main draw will then be entered into a separate EuroMillions Plus draw. The two Lucky Stars will not be used in the Plus draw.
When the EuroMillions Plus draw takes place, five numbers are selected from 1 to 50. You win €500,000 if all your numbers come up, while there is also a Match 4 prize of €2,000 and a Match 3 prize of €20.
Fixed Prizes
Unlike the main EuroMillions draw, these prize amounts are fixed, so you are guaranteed to win €500,000 if you match all five main numbers, and so on. The prize will only be reduced in exceptional circumstances when the total payout would come to more than €3 million. The main EuroMillions game works on a pari-mutuel basis, with prize amounts dependent on the number of winners and the number of tickets sold.
You are also rewarded better for matching five numbers in EuroMillions Plus. The Match 5 prize in EuroMillions has been between €18,000 and €250,000 in the seven draws since the start of May - impressive values but less than half of the EuroMIllions Plus jackpot.
Better Odds
The odds of winning the top prize in EuroMillions Plus are 1 in 2,118,760, exactly 66 times better than the chances of landing the main EuroMillions jackpot. Adding EuroMillions Plus to your ticket improves your chances of winning a prize on either game from 1 in 13 to 1 in 12.
As the draws take place separately, you can also win prizes on both games, especially if some of the numbers appear twice. It might be, for example, that you win in the Match 2 + 2 category on EuroMillions, and Match 4 on EuroMillions Plus.
You can also win Ireland Only Raffle prizes simultaneously. You are automatically entered into the Ireland Only Raffle when you buy a EuroMillions ticket, but you must opt in to play EuroMillions Plus. You can’t play EuroMillions Plus independently from the other two games.
Success Stories
You can even improve your odds further by playing in a syndicate, like the family from Westmeath who recently scooped the top prize of €500,000. Having played EuroMillions together for nearly 10 years, they finally won big on Friday 17th May after buying a ticket in Marie’s store on Church Street in Moate.
They had a feeling they had won after finding out that the local store had sold the all-important ticket. One of the winners said: “I said to my mother that it was definitely us and we just sat in the house for hours before we even checked the ticket! It was just a magical feeling when we all finally plucked up the courage to check it – it was just brilliant.” The winners added that they would not splash the money wildly but would be having a family holiday in the sun this summer.
A retired man from Donegal was similarly confident about his chances after hearing about a local winner back on 26th April, and sure enough he also picked up €500,000. He recalled: “I went out to get my usual shopping and checked my ticket in a store and it told me to contact the National Lottery. Without even checking the numbers I knew it was me then and there.”
