The usual advice about avoiding birthday numbers to dodge a shared jackpot does not apply here. Thunderball prizes are fixed, so ten tickets matching all six each collect £500,000 rather than dividing one pot. Picking 32 to 39 changes nothing about what you win, and nothing about your odds either.
The game at a glance
5 of 39 + Thunderball
Tue · Wed · Fri · Sat
United Kingdom
1 in 8,060,598
The same for every possible combination, including this one.
All divisions →
1 of 14
Thunderball: you pick it yourself, drawn from a separate pool.
18+
Must be 18+ to play Thunderball.
Thunderball, in brief
Thunderball is one of the National Lottery's draw games, run in the UK by Allwyn. A line costs £1 and asks you to pick five main numbers from 1 to 39, then one Thunderball from a separate pool of 1 to 14. Matching the Thunderball on its own is enough to win the bottom prize, at odds of roughly 1 in 29, which is the shortest way into the table.
Draws are held four times a week, on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Nothing rolls over. The top prize is a flat £500,000 for matching all five numbers plus the Thunderball, and it is £500,000 whether it went last night or has sat unwon for months. Every tier beneath it is a set cash figure too, running from £5,000 down to £3.
Fixed prizes need a safeguard, and Thunderball has one. If the total value of prizes due in a single draw would come to more than four times the value of entries in that draw, prize capping applies and the affected categories pay less than the published amount. It happens rarely, and it is the only way a Thunderball win comes in under the figure printed in the rules.
Prize tiers
Match 5 + ThunderballJackpot
A fixed £500,000, the top prize, which never rolls over
Match 5
A fixed £5,000
Match 4 + Thunderball
A fixed £250
Match 4
A fixed £100
Match 3 + Thunderball
A fixed £20
Match 3
A fixed £10
Match 2 + Thunderball
A fixed £10, the same as matching three numbers without the Thunderball
Match 1 + Thunderball
A fixed £5
Thunderball only
A fixed £3, three times the cost of a line
Where Thunderball came from
A 1999 spin-off
Thunderball launched on 12 June 1999, five years after the main Lotto draw, and ran on Saturday nights only. Players picked five numbers from 1 to 34 plus a Thunderball from 1 to 14, and the top prize was £250,000. A Wednesday draw was added in October 2002, giving the game two nights a week and doubling how often those fixed prizes were paid out.
The 2010 overhaul
May 2010 brought the changes that shaped the game as it stands. The main pool grew from 34 numbers to 39, the top prize doubled to £500,000, a Friday draw joined the schedule, and a new bottom tier was created for tickets matching the Thunderball alone. Widening the pool stretched the top-tier odds to 1 in 8,060,598, where they have stayed ever since.
Four draws a week
A Tuesday draw was added on 30 January 2018, bringing Thunderball to its present four nights. The current rules, Edition 14, took effect on 1 February 2024, the date Allwyn's licence to run the National Lottery began. The prize table and the 39-plus-14 matrix came through that handover untouched, so a ticket bought today plays the same game it did in 2018.
Picking numbers, honestly
There is no jackpot to wait for. Because the top prize is set at £500,000 every draw, a long run without a winner builds nothing up, and the sixteenth draw in a row with no top-tier ticket pays exactly what the first one would have. Rollover watching is a habit imported from other games.
Four draws a week does not mean four independent shots become one better shot. Each Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday draw is its own event with the same 1 in 8,060,598 at the top. Playing the same line every night of the week multiplies your stake, not your standing in any single draw.
Thunderball — frequently asked
No. It is a fixed £500,000 in every draw, won or not.
Each one wins £500,000 in full. The only exception is prize capping, which applies when the total prizes due in a draw would exceed four times the value of entries in it.
The Thunderball on its own, with none of the five main numbers, pays £3 on a £1 line. That tier was added in the 2010 overhaul and it is the most commonly won prize in the game.
Four, on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Saturday was the only draw night from 1999 until Wednesday was added in 2002, then Friday in 2010 and Tuesday in 2018.
No. It comes from a separate pool of 14 numbers, so the same value can appear as a main number and as the Thunderball in one draw. Your Thunderball pick is independent of the five you choose from 39.