Sticking to numbers 1 through 31 doesn't change your odds of matching the draw, since every one of the roughly 140 million possible combinations is equally likely. It does raise the odds you'll have to split the jackpot with someone else, because so many players pick birthdays and anniversaries that the top half of the 50-number pool gets chosen far less often.
The game at a glance
5 of 50 + 2 Euros
Tue · Fri
Europe
1 in 139,838,160
The same for every possible combination, including this one.
2 of 12
Euro numbers: you pick them yourself, drawn from a separate pool.
18+
Must be 18+ to play Eurojackpot.
Eurojackpot, in brief
Eurojackpot asks players to pick five numbers from 1 to 50 and two Euro numbers from 1 to 12, and the pitch from day one was math rather than marketing. Its designers deliberately kept the number pools smaller than EuroMillions or the US Powerball, which shortens the jackpot odds to 1 in 139,838,160 and gives players a genuinely better shot at the top prize than either of those bigger games. It's still a long shot. Just a shorter one.
The game is pan-European, sold through participating national lottery operators in around 18 to 19 countries stretching from the Nordic countries down through central Europe to Italy and Spain. Each country runs its own retail side and sets its own ticket price, then feeds sales into one shared prize pool, so a jackpot ticket bought in Latvia and one bought in the Netherlands are chasing the same number.
Draws happen twice a week, Tuesday and Friday nights, and the jackpot rolls over from draw to draw until somebody matches all seven numbers.
Prize tiers
5 numbers + 2 Euro numbersJackpot
The jackpot, capped at €120 million and split evenly among all winning tickets across every participating country
5 numbers + 1 Euro number
The second-tier prize, and the tier that absorbs the overflow once the jackpot hits its cap
5 numbers + 0 Euro numbers
A substantial third-tier win, well below the jackpot but still life-changing for most players
4 numbers + 2 Euro numbers
A solid mid-tier prize, the kind that turns heads without making headlines
4 numbers + 1 Euro number
A smaller prize, well below the tiers above it
3 numbers + 2 Euro numbers
A modest win; the amounts drop quickly from this tier down
4 numbers + 0 Euro numbers
A small prize despite the four matched numbers, since the Euro numbers carry real weight in this game
2 numbers + 2 Euro numbers
A small win where the two Euro numbers do most of the work
3 numbers + 1 Euro number
A low-tier prize, enough to cover a run of future tickets
3 numbers + 0 Euro numbers
One of the smallest wins on the table
1 number + 2 Euro numbers
The tier that surprises people: a single main number pays out when both Euro numbers match
2 numbers + 1 Euro number
The lowest winning combination, a small fixed-style payout at the bottom of the twelve-tier table
Where Eurojackpot came from
Built to rival EuroMillions
Eurojackpot started in March 2012 as a direct rival to EuroMillions, built for national lotteries that wanted a share of the multi-country jackpot business without joining the EuroMillions consortium. It launched with a 5-from-50 plus 2-from-8 format and a single Friday draw, and stayed that way for its first two and a half years.
The 2022 expansion
The Euro number pool grew from 8 to 10 in October 2014, then to the current 12 in March 2022, on the tenth anniversary of the launch. That same date added the second weekly draw on Tuesdays and raised the jackpot cap from €90 million to €120 million.
The rollover rule that flipped
One rule has flipped since launch. In the game's first year, the jackpot could roll over only 12 times before being forced down into a lower prize tier; that limit was dropped in February 2013. Today the jackpot rolls freely until someone wins it or it hits the €120 million cap, at which point extra prize money starts flowing into the next tier down instead.
Picking numbers, honestly
There's no such thing as a number being overdue. Each Eurojackpot draw pulls balls independently of every draw before it, so a number that hasn't appeared in months has exactly the same chance as one that hit last week.
The €120 million jackpot cap isn't a ceiling on your winnings, it's a redirect. Once the jackpot hits that figure, ticket sales that would have grown it further get routed into the second-tier prize instead, so a run of rollovers at the cap quietly inflates the payout for players who matched five numbers plus one Euro number.
Eurojackpot — frequently asked
No. They're separate lotteries run by different groups of national operators, sold in overlapping but not identical countries, with different number formats and different odds. Eurojackpot was built specifically to offer shorter jackpot odds than EuroMillions.
Around 18 to 19, stretching from the Nordic countries through central Europe to Italy and Spain. Each country's lottery operator sells its own tickets into one shared prize pool.
There weren't always. Eurojackpot ran Friday-only for its first decade; a second draw, on Tuesdays, was added in March 2022 to mark the game's tenth anniversary.
It stops growing. Any extra money that would have added to the jackpot gets diverted into the second prize tier instead, until someone wins the top prize and the jackpot resets.
They're drawn from a separate, smaller pool of 1 to 12 using their own machine, which is why a Euro number can repeat a value already drawn among the main five in the same draw.