Playing birthdays and anniversaries doesn't hurt your odds of winning, but it does raise your odds of sharing. Calendar picks cluster on 1 through 31, leaving the sixteen numbers from 32 to 47 under-played, so a jackpot hit on low numbers tends to be split more ways.
The game at a glance
6 of 47 + Bonus
Wed · Sat
Ireland
1 in 10,737,573
The same for every possible combination, including this one.
All divisions →
Bonus
After the six main numbers are drawn, a Bonus ball comes out of the same drum from the remaining 41. Players don't pick it; it simply boosts several mid-table prize tiers if it matches one of your six.
18+
Must be 18+ to play Irish Lotto.
Irish Lotto, in brief
Irish Lotto is the flagship draw game of Ireland's National Lottery, operated by Premier Lotteries Ireland under state licence. A play asks for six numbers from 1 to 47, and matching all six takes the jackpot. There's no second machine and no player-picked extra ball; after the main six are drawn, a Bonus ball comes out of the remaining 41 and feeds several of the smaller prize tiers.
Draws are held on Wednesday and Saturday evenings. The jackpot rolls over when nobody matches all six, and by the standards of the big international games it's genuinely reachable: 1 in 10,737,573 for the top prize, against odds in the hundreds of millions for EuroMillions or the US giants. Across all eight tiers, roughly 1 in 29 plays wins something.
Prize tiers
6 numbersJackpot
The jackpot, split evenly among all winning plays
5 numbers + Bonus
A large secondary prize, usually in the tens of thousands of euro
5 numbers
A share of the prize fund, typically well over a thousand euro
4 numbers + Bonus
A modest cash prize, usually a low three-figure sum
4 numbers
A small cash prize
3 numbers + Bonus
A small cash prize
3 numbers
A fixed cash prize of a few euro
2 numbers + Bonus
The minimum prize, roughly the cost of a play
Where Irish Lotto came from
A 6/36 game from 1988
Ireland's National Lottery began selling scratch cards in 1987, and the Lotto draw itself launched in April 1988 as a 6-from-36 game. That first matrix offered under two million possible combinations, tiny by modern standards, which is exactly what made it a target a few years later.
The syndicate that bought the draw
In May 1992, an accountant named Stefan Klincewicz organised a syndicate to buy every one of the roughly 1.94 million combinations while a rollover pushed the jackpot to around £1.7 million. Playslips were filled in by hand over months. The Lottery fought back by capping sales and switching off terminals, so the group managed only about 80% coverage, and the jackpot ended up split three ways. The syndicate still walked away in profit thanks to the flood of match-four and match-five prizes it had also swept up.
Widening to 47
Partly in response, and partly to keep jackpots rolling higher, the matrix has been stretched repeatedly: to 39 numbers in 1992, 42 in 1994, 45 in 2006, and the current 6-from-47 format in September 2015. Each widening made a repeat of the 1992 stunt less practical while keeping the game far shorter-odds than the multinational draws.
Picking numbers, honestly
A number that hasn't appeared in twenty draws isn't due. The drum has no memory, and every ball carries identical odds in every draw regardless of what came out last month.
In 1992 a syndicate led by Stefan Klincewicz really did try to buy every combination in the then 6-from-36 game, covering about 80% of it before the Lottery shut down its terminals. The jackpot split three ways, yet the smaller prizes still pushed the group into profit. The matrix widenings since then are the reason nobody could repeat it today.
Irish Lotto — frequently asked
No. You choose only six main numbers. The Bonus is drawn by the Lottery from the 41 balls left in the drum and counts toward several mid-tier prizes if it matches one of your six.
About 1 in 29 per play across the eight prize tiers. The jackpot itself is 1 in 10,737,573.
It's far shorter odds. Irish Lotto's jackpot sits at roughly 1 in 10.7 million, while EuroMillions runs to about 1 in 139 million and US Powerball past 1 in 292 million. The trade-off is smaller jackpots.
No. It launched in 1988 as a 6-from-36 game and was widened to 39, then 42, then 45 numbers over the years. The current 6-from-47 matrix arrived in September 2015.
The lowest tier pays on two main numbers plus the Bonus. Three main numbers without the Bonus also wins a small fixed prize.