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The odds of winning the lottery ahead of the record-breaking £148m EuroMillions jackpot up for grabs

The odds of winning the lottery ahead of the record-breaking £148m EuroMillions jackpot up for grabs
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The UK’s biggest ever EuroMillionsjackpot is up for grabs tonight, and someone could win a whopping £184m.

Since no one was able to win the £174m prize in Friday’s draw, this means that the money has now rolled over to tonight’s draw.

As the name suggests, there are nine European countries (including the UK) that can enter for a chance to win.

If a Brit did take home the prize, they would eclipse the previous record of the largest prize won in the UK which currently stands at a massive £170 million and was won in 2019 by an anonymous ticket holder (lucky them).

So far, there have been five British EuroMillions winners this year, notably a £122 million winner in April and a £111 million winner in June.

How rich would the jackpot winner be?

Short answer - filthy rich.

A UK winner could count themselves richer than the singer Adele whose net worth is £130 million, according to The Sunday Times Rich List.

Without a doubt they could also splash the cash by purchasing a house in each of the top 10 priciest streets in the UK, including in London’s Kensington Palace Gardens, where the average house price is nearly £30 million.

Andy Carter, senior winners’ adviser at The National Lottery, said the £184m “can make a difference for generations and generations to come.”

What are the odds of winning the jackpot?

You’ve got to in it to win it, as the old saying goes but how likely are you to predict the winning numbers?

Overall the odds of you winning a prize at all in the EuroMillions is one in 13 - which seems achievable, but we’re going to break this down.

Players have to pick five numbers out of the potential 50, along with two Lucky Star numbers out of the 12 to choose from.

The odds of miraculously picking all seven numbers is 1 in 139,838,160, according to EuroMillions (sorry to be the bearer of bad news).

Let’s put this figure in perspective. Here are a list of things that are more likely to happen than winning the lottery, according to the Review Journal.

  • Being crushed by a meteor (1 in 700,000)
  • Becoming a movie star - (1 in 1,500,000)
  • Dying from being a left-handed person who misuses right-hand products (seriously) - (1 in 7,000,000)
  • Winning an Olympic medal - (1 in 662,000)
  • Dying in a plane crash - (1 in 11,000,000)

Next, the odds of matching five numbers along with one Lucky Star is more achievable...ish with the odds being 1 in 6,991,908.

*It’s also important to remember the odds also depend on how many people purchase a ticket.

Which numbers are drawn the most and the least frequently statistically?

According to Lottery.co.uk, when looking at the data from September 2016 to October 2021 the numbers that appear more frequently in draws are: 20, 23, 5, 27, 42, with the Lucky Stars 102 and 109.

Meanwhile, the numbers in the same period that have been drawn the least frequently are: 22, 18, 40, 33, 36, with Lucky Stars 10 and 1.

Apparently the most overdue numbers (the ones which have gone the longest period of time without appearing in a winning line) are: 4, 40, 22, 16, 24, with the Lucky Stars 4 and 11.

You never know numbers from all three categories might make an appearance tonight.

What time does the draw take place?

Ticket sales end at 7.30pm tonight for Tuesday’s £184m jackpot, and the draw takes place at 7.45pm.

So make sure you’ve purchased your ticket before 7.30pm to be in with a chance.

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