The lotteries to play for one of the best probability of scooping the jackpot: Insiders’ information to these value taking part in and what number of tickets to purchase

Whether you play every week or only pick up a ticket when you’re feeling lucky, most of us have dreamt about the lavish and glamorous ways you’d spend a lottery jackpot.

It might be buying a sprawling property in a leafy home county or jetting off to Spain for a glitzy early retirement in the sun.

But how likely is it really that you’ll win big? Money Mail has analysed the most well-known lotteries in the UK to find out which one gives you the best chance to win the jackpot prize – and asked the experts which popular draw you should never enter.

The Health Lottery

• Chance of winning any prize: one in 9.7
• Chance of winning the jackpot: one in 2.1 million

The Health Lottery is less commonly known, but if you’re after a jackpot win, it has the best known chance in our list. This is because the odds on some other lotteries, such as Omaze and the People’s Postcode Lottery, depend on how many tickets are purchased for each draw.

This lottery, launched in 2011, runs draws to raise funds for health-related causes that don’t receive money from the NHS. These include Dementia UK and disability charities Mencap and Scope.

For every £1 spent on a line of play in the Big Win draw – which runs every night – 20p is funnelled straight to these projects.

The chance of winning the jackpot is one in 2.1 million as punters must choose just five numbers between one and 50.

The ‘jackpot’ is much smaller than some of the more popular lotteries at only £25,000 – but players only need to shell out £1 for one line of play.

It is one of the ‘easiest’ lotteries to win on our list. And there’s another nifty trick you can use to further boost your chances – enter on a Wednesday or Saturday. On these days, your numbers are automatically entered into a second draw to win a £100,000 jackpot.

The chance of winning any prize in the Big Win draw – ranging from a free ticket to the jackpot – is one in 9.7.

Thunderball

• Chances of winning any prize: one in 13
• Chances of winning the jackpot: one in 8,060,598

Avid Lottery players may be keen Thunderball participants as the game boasts four draws every week.

The jackpot is lower than some other National Lottery games at £500,000, but you have a better chance of winning the top prize. Players must choose five numbers between one and 39 and a ‘Thunderball’ number between one and 14.

Punters have a one in 8,060,598 chance of matching the five main numbers and one Thunderball number needed to win the jackpot.

Unlike the flagship Lotto game, the jackpot is a set amount and won’t have to be shared with other players who chose the same winning numbers as you.

Plus, one line of numbers is cheaper at just £1.

Savvy players will realise that for the same price of one Lotto ticket, they can buy two Thunderball tickets, thereby increasing their chances to two in 8,060,598.

For the second prize – £5,000 – the chance of winning is one in 620,046 (match five numbers). Other prizes range from £3 to £250.

The chance of winning any prize is one in 13, according to the National Lottery.

Lotto

• Chance of winning any prize: one in 9.3
• Chance of winning the jackpot: one in 45,057,474

It is the original ‘millionaire maker’, the National Lottery says, and millions of families will have memories of sitting around the television on a Saturday night to see if their numbers were drawn.

But the chances of winning the jackpot in the flagship Lotto game are shockingly poor.

Players of the Lotto draw have been lured in by jackpots as big as £66 million since its launch in 1994. Tickets can be bought for £2 and players must choose six numbers between one and 59.

Prizes are based on how many of a player’s six numbers match the numbers in the draw, which takes place every Wednesday and Saturday.

The chance of winning any prize with one ticket are one in 9.3. Promising, right?

Prizes, however, can be as small as a free Lucky Dip line, worth £2, where players are given an entry with a randomly generated number sequence.

For the big jackpot, the chances of winning are one in 45,057,474.

The chances per ticket for the rest of the prizes are one in 10.3 for the Lucky Dip prize (two balls); one in 96.2 for £30 (three balls); one in 2,180 for £140 (four balls); one in 144,415 for £1,750 (five balls); and one in 7,509,579 for £1 million (five balls plus bonus ball).

Winning a prize may sound like a shot in the dark but players can marginally increase their chances of hitting the jackpot by buying more tickets.

If players increase their spend to £10 – buying five tickets – they have five chances out of 45 million to match the numbers instead of one out of 45 million, the National Lottery says.

Michael Dunne-Willows, of the Royal Statistical Society, explains the probability of winning increases as players buy more tickets with different numbers.

With £10 (five tickets), the probability improves to one in 9.1 million for the top prize, according to his calculations.

While jackpot prizes vary based on ticket sales, January’s big payouts ranged from £3.8million to £13.3million.

Some of the most commonly drawn numbers include 42, 52 and 37, according to website Lottery.co.uk.

But choosing these numbers won’t increase your chances of winning. Any sequence of numbers – even 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 – has just as much chance of being drawn as any other.

Set For Life

• Chance of winning any prize: one in 12.4
• Chance of winning the jackpot: one in 15,339,390

This quirky game, launched in 2019, is yet another offering from the National Lottery. However, it works slightly differently as the jackpot prize isn’t a lump sum but rather £10,000 every month for 30 years.

Hopeful players must choose five numbers from one to 47 and another ‘life ball’ from one to ten. Each line costs £1.50 and draws take place on Monday and Thursday.

The chance of winning any prize is one in 12.4. But all five numbers and the ‘life ball’ number must be matched to win the jackpot – and the chance of doing so per ticket is a dismal one in 15,339,390.

This improves to one in 1,704,377 for the second biggest prize – £10,000 every month for one year. In January, one lucky winner secured this silver prize by using her family’s birthday numbers. Other small prizes range from £5 to £250.

In the likely event that you don’t win a prize, it may be some solace to know that your stake will be used to fund the Lottery’s Good Causes. It raises £32million every week for charitable causes, heritage projects and funding British athletes hoping make it to the Olympics.

Scratchcards

• Chance of winning any prize: one in 3.79
• Chance of winning the jackpot: Depends on the scratchcard

These don’t function as lotteries but are rather instant win games. 

Take the National Lottery’s £2million Red offering, for example, which costs a steep £5. Punters can win a £2million jackpot but the chances of winning the big prize are slim – just one in 5,766,840. The chance of winning your £5 back is one in ten.

There are a further 50 cards on offer with different chances of winning a top prize. Instead of targeting the games with the biggest jackpots, savvy players may instead buy those with better chances of winning big – or indeed any prize at all.

Take the £100k Gold card, for example. The chances of winning the top prize are a poor one in 8,777,916. However, there is a one in 3.79 chance of winning any prize.

Omaze

• Chance of winning the jackpot: Depends on the number of entries

The Omaze Million Pound House Draw has captivated the country since its UK launch in 2020 with its glamorous houses and persistent marketing.

It offers players the chance to win mansions all over the country – and its current offering is a £4million five-bedroom Cornwall home.

While it’s a for-profit organisation, Omaze guarantees its charity partners a minimum £1million in donation or 17 pc of ticket sales – whichever is greater. The Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity is this month’s beneficiary.

It works like this. Omaze operates as a raffle-style draw and assigns a code to entries. When players buy multiple entries, it assigns all entries the same code, which means it has a greater chance of being drawn by its random number generator.

The chances of winning depend on how many entries there are to each draw, so it changes each month, and Omaze keeps its cards close to its chest on how many entries there are.

Its website simply says the odds of winning ‘depend on the number of entries received’. It has previously said the number of entrants is in the hundreds of thousands for each draw.

The number of entries to the draw could well be far higher than the hundreds of thousands of people that typically enter, as online players must spend a minimum of £15, which buys 20 entries. If you commit to a monthly subscription, this £15 will buy 100 entries each month.

While it is impossible to calculate the exact chance of winning without knowing the number of raffle tickets sold, if for example 100,000 people are in play for one game and each buy 20 tickets, there would be two million tickets in play.

This means a player would have a one in 100,000 chance of winning the dream home.

However, be aware that some entrants may purchase many tickets or there may be many more entrants as the draw soars in popularity.

One savvy trick to get more value for your money is to buy more tickets in one go, rather than buy multiple bundles of tickets.

For example, say you want 40 tickets. You may think you can buy two lots of 20 tickets at £15 a pop.

However, if you instead buy a £30 bundle, the number of tickets you receive doesn’t increase from 20 to 40 – it buys 45 entries. Remember, if you buy more tickets, you must be prepared to lose this money.

The People’s Postcode Lottery

• Chances of winning the jackpot: Depends on the number of postcodes entered into the draw

In the People’s Postcode Lottery draw, your postcode is your ticket. Like Omaze it operates as a raffle-style draw and winning postcodes are selected using a software tool.

This means that the chances of winning will vary depending on how many postcodes had a customer who snapped up a ticket for a draw.

Every month there is £250,000 available for every winning ticket in a postcode. This excludes the April and December draws. That’s because in these months there are the Postcode Millions games. These are multi-million pound draws shared by one postcode ‘sector’. For example, for the postcode ‘W8 5HY’, the sector is ‘W8 5’ so winners will need to share their prizes among more of their neighbours.

And the big prize is a weekly £1million jackpot. But here comes the catch – this £1million must be shared by all the entrants in one postcode.

And in this so-called Millionaire Street draw, there’s no way your family could win the full £1million – even if you hold the only ticket. That’s because the maximum prize per ticket is 10 pc of the sales for that draw – up to £500,000. It’s the same for the Postcode Millions prize.

The People’s Postcode Lottery says that the average chance of winning one of the big prizes (Millionaire Street, Postcode Millions or £250,000) is better than one in 250,000 per ticket. This is based on the current prize plan and number of entries.

Every day there is £1,000 up for grabs for every winning ticket in some 20 postcodes. You have a better chance of winning one of these pots – better than one in 2,000, it says.

Some 84 pc of players won a prize last year.

And you need only pay one fee each month to be entered into all the prize draws. It’s a rolling subscription which costs £12.25 for March draws and then £12.50 onwards.

And the lottery with the worst chance of hitting the jackpot…

• Chance of winning any prize: one in 13
• Chance of winning the jackpot: one in 139,838,160

You may be tempted by the prospect of a prize running upwards of €100million in the lucrative EuroMillions draw.

Launched in 2004, this multi-country Lottery offers the chance to propel your status to multi-millionaire for £2.50 per line of numbers. Punters must choose five numbers between one and 50 and two ‘lucky star’ numbers between one and twelve.

The highest ever prizes were won last year after the jackpot cap of €250million was reached three times.

France is the luckiest country for all EuroMillions wins, snapping up 29.4 per cent of all prizes, according to lottery tracking website Euro-Millions.com. But when it comes to the jackpot, Britons are the most fortunate with 134 wins under their belt.

But be warned, the chance of winning such a lucrative prize is extremely low. It is a cool one in 139,838,160 for the jackpot, the value of which depends on the number of tickets sold. All seven numbers must match for the big win.

Even the chance of winning the silver prize – which equates to 2.61 per cent of the price fund – is just one in 6,991,908. For this, five numbers and one ‘lucky star’ must be matched. 

The game pulls in more occasional players as the jackpot creeps upwards, but the chance of winning doesn’t change – even if more people buy a ticket.

Wannabe multi-millionaires may be tempted to enter a draw in June as The National Lottery admits that month is historically lucky for buying tickets. Taking the top 20 prize winners over the past 15 years, the luckiest month is June – with four winners.

An individual in 2023 picked up £111.7million, someone in 2021 bagged almost £111.5million, in 2019 £123.5million was won and a lucky person in 2015 reaped £93.4million.

The least lucky month for ticket purchases is December, where none of the top 20 winning tickets was pulled out.

• Never gamble more than you can afford to lose. If you are worried about betting, contact the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133.