Belgian Player Celebrates Euromillions Birthday Win!

A Belgian Euromillions player is celebrating after winning the €100,000,000 jackpot that was put up to commemorate the third birthday of the Euromillions lottery itself. Euromillions was launched in February 2004, and although just three countries participated at the outset (namely France, Spain and the United Kingdom) there are now a total of nine nations playing, making Euromillions one of the biggest lotteries in the world.

In normal circumstances, any Euromillions jackpot which is not won is “rolled over” to the draw for the following week. An unclaimed jackpot can usually roll over eleven times before Euromillions rules force a payout in the twelfth week by distributing it to players matching the most numbers, regardless of which prize tier they qualify for.

This rule was suspended for the Euromillions guaranteed superdraw – if nobody won the jackpot outright, the €100,000,000 (around £66,000,000) would have been shared by second tier prize winners – and this meant that even non-jackpot winners stood a very good chance of becoming millionaires if the top prize proved elusive.

Unfortunately for the masses – but to the presumed delight of the winner – a single individual from Belgium succeeded in matching all five main numbers (14, 16, 30, 36, 46) and both Lucky Star numbers (2 and 8) to scoop the entire €100,000,000. The odds of doing this are 1 in 76,275,360.

Seventeen players beat odds of 1 in 5,448,240 to match five main numbers and one Lucky Star number. These second tier prize winners won €355,280 each – not the seven or eight figure sums they were probably hoping for, but certainly enough to make their ticket purchases worthwhile.

February seems to be a very good month for Euromillions. As well as being its birthday month, the largest Euromillions jackpot ever was in February 2006, when €183,573,077 was shared between three lucky winners. And with two more February draws left in 2007, there’s still time for it to be a good month for you – the jackpot for the draw on Friday 16 stands at €15,000,000.

- 15/02/07