Euro Millions

There are nine countries currently participating in EuroMillions. In alphabetical order, these are Austria, Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. This makes EuroMillions one of the biggest lotteries on the planet - and certainly one of the most exciting! Euro Millions is a European lottery that takes place twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday evenings. Whereas national lotteries are generally limited to the residents of one particular country, the Euro Millions lottery pools the stakes of the participating European countries. This obviously makes the prizes a great deal larger than in national lotteries even in normal circumstances. But because the main prize pool is “rolled over” to the next draw if there is no jackpot winner, prizes can - after a few weeks without a winner - be as high as 185 million Euros. The rollover jackpot eluded EuroMillions players in the game on Friday 28 October. The main numbers drawn in that game were 16, 17, 20, 39 and 50, and the Lucky Star numbers were 04 and 08. The jackpot was worth €26.9 million (£23.7 million) but because no player matched all five main numbers plus both Lucky Stars, the sum has been rolled over, giving the jackpot in the next game this Tuesday 1 November an estimated value of€33 million (around £29 million). - (31st October 2011)