EuroJackpot Odds Explained — What Are Your Chances?

Understanding lottery odds

The “odds” of a lottery describe how many unique ticket combinations exist. When EuroJackpot says the jackpot odds are “1 in 139,838,160”, it means exactly that: there are 139,838,160 possible number combinations, and only one of them wins the jackpot in any given draw. Buy one ticket, and your probability of winning is 1 ÷ 139,838,160 — roughly 0.0000007%.

This number is fixed by the game design. It does not change based on how many people are playing, the size of the jackpot, or any previous draw results. Each draw is a statistically independent event.

How EuroJackpot odds are calculated

EuroJackpot requires picking 5 numbers from 1–50 and 2 Euro numbers from 1–12. Mathematicians use the combination formula C(n, k) = n! / (k! × (n−k)!) to count the distinct ways to choose k items from n without repetition.

C(50,5) = 50! / (5! × 45!) = 2,118,760 ways to pick 5 main numbers

C(12,2) = 12! / (2! × 10!) = 66 ways to pick 2 Euro numbers

2,118,760 × 66 = 139,838,160 total jackpot combinations

You can verify this calculation yourself with our custom odds calculator, which lets you compute odds for any lottery format. The official EuroJackpot prize table also publishes all tier odds.

All 12 prize tier odds

EuroJackpot rewards 12 different matching combinations:

• 5+2 (Jackpot): 1 in 139,838,160
• 5+1: 1 in 6,991,908
• 5+0: 1 in 3,107,515
• 4+2: 1 in 621,503
• 4+1: 1 in 31,076
• 4+0: 1 in 13,812
• 3+2: 1 in 14,126
• 2+2: 1 in 985
• 3+1: 1 in 707
• 3+0: 1 in 314
• 1+2: 1 in 128
• 2+1: 1 in 49

The most accessible prize tier is 2+1, which has near-coin-flip frequency compared to the jackpot. The overall probability of winning any prize is approximately 1 in 26 — meaning you can expect a small win on roughly one in every 26 tickets you purchase over the long run.

Real-world comparisons

139 million is a number difficult to intuitively grasp. Here are some comparisons that help put the jackpot odds in perspective:

• If you bought one ticket per second, non-stop, you would expect to win the jackpot once every 4.4 years — but at a cost of over €12 billion.
• Your annual odds of being struck by lightning (roughly 1 in 700,000) are about 200 times better than winning the EuroJackpot jackpot with a single ticket.
• Poland's population is approximately 38 million people. Picking one specific person at random from all of Poland and being correct is roughly 3.7 times more likely than winning the EuroJackpot jackpot with one ticket.
• If you played every draw since EuroJackpot launched in 2012 (approximately 650 draws through 2025), your cumulative probability of ever having won the jackpot would still be less than 1 in 215,000.

Comparing to other lotteries

EuroJackpot's 1-in-139-million odds are identical to EuroMillions, since both games use the same 5/50 + 2/12 matrix. Both are significantly better than US games:

• Polish Lotto (6/49): 1 in 13,983,816 — roughly 10× easier to win
• EuroJackpot / EuroMillions: 1 in 139,838,160
• US Powerball: 1 in 292,201,338 — roughly 2× harder
• US Mega Millions: 1 in 302,575,350 — roughly 2.2× harder

Polish Lotto's far better jackpot odds come at the cost of smaller prize pools. The expected jackpot at the time of winning is typically 2–15 million PLN, versus EuroJackpot's €10–120 million. See our EuroJackpot vs Polish Lotto comparison for a full breakdown.

Lower-tier prize odds

The good news is that EuroJackpot's 12-tier structure gives frequent small wins. Tier 12 (2+1, odds 1 in 49) pays a fixed €5 prize. Tier 11 (1+2, odds 1 in 128) also pays €5. Tier 10 (3+0, odds 1 in 314) typically pays €10–12.

These lower-tier wins are not a path to profit — the prizes are small relative to the total money spent — but they do make EuroJackpot a more entertaining game than single-tier alternatives where you either win the jackpot or nothing.

Does strategy improve your odds?

No number selection strategy can improve your mathematical odds of winning the jackpot. Every combination of 5+2 has exactly the same 1-in-139-million probability. Hot and cold number analysis, numerology, and pattern-based picks are entertaining but have no statistical effect on jackpot probability.

There is one very marginal consideration: popular number combinations (birthdays, sequences like 1-2-3-4-5) are chosen by more players. If you win the jackpot with a popular combination, you are more likely to share it. Choosing unusual combinations doesn't improve your odds of winning, but reduces the expected split if you do win.

Multiple tickets and syndicates

The only proven way to improve your odds is to buy more independent tickets. Each additional ticket gives a proportional boost: 10 tickets give 10-in-139-million odds. A syndicate of 50 players each buying one ticket collectively has 50-in-139-million odds — 50 times better than one player alone, at the same individual cost.

Use our syndicate calculator to model the odds and prize splits for groups of any size. Remember that while syndicates improve odds, any prize won is shared equally — a €10 million jackpot split 50 ways is €200,000 per person.