New EuroMillions Rule

 

A new EuroMillions rule has been introduced (effective from Friday 6 March, 2009) that will limit future jackpots to no more than €185,000,000. This is still €2 million more than the highest EuroMillions jackpot on record, so players won’t be missing out on anything. In fact, the new EuroMillions rule will actually benefit some players.

To understand why this is the case we need to point out that, if the EuroMillions jackpot fund reaches the jackpot pool cap of €185,000,000, any money that would previously have been added to the jackpot over and above that amount will now be added to the second tier prize fund. That being the case, if a player matches five main numbers and one Lucky Star, they would win more than they would have done prior to the new EuroMillions rule.

Of course, so far all of this is academic at the time of writing, because the EuroMillions jackpot has not yet reached €185,000,000, but the fact that the National Lottery organisers are thinking in terms of hitherto unreached levels indicates that they expect the jackpot to hit the €185 million mark at some point in the future.

For those readers who are disappointed that the new EuroMillions rule makes jackpots greater than €185,000,000 a virtual impossibility (though there could always be further rules introduced that allow exceptions) we would point out that €185 million is a heck of a lot of money. In fact, the interest alone would enable you to fulfil the dreams of most lottery winners and leave every penny of the jackpot itself intact – €185,000,000 earning 5% interest annually would give you €9,250,000 a year to have fun with without touching the principal!

Although the new EuroMillions rule has not been extensively discussed in the media, we think it is something that all National Lottery players should be aware of, hence our decision to publish this article in the first place. Whilst we are extremely unlikely to be directly affected by the new EuroMillions rule on anything approaching a regular basis, knowing that it exists means that you won’t be surprised when the EuroMillions jackpot suddenly stops growing when it hits the €185,000,000 level.

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