Lottery Q&A: What are my odds and does it matter where I buy a ticket?
The shop that sold this week's winning EuroMillions ticket has been announced, has it?
It has indeed.
Clifford's Centra
on Shandon Street in
Cork
City supplied the record-breaking €250 million ticket.
Good for them. Do they get a big windfall too?
Well, big is relative, isn't it? A shop that sells a winning ticket does indeed get a cash bonus from the National
Lottery
, with the amount depending on the nature of the winning ticket. A place that sells a winning Lotto ticket gets €15,000, falling to three grand if they sell a Lotto Plus 1 and €2,000 if they sell a Lotto Plus 2 ticket.
Yeah, but they must really hit pay dirt if they sell a €250 million winner, right?
Meh. The size of the cash sum given to shops for any particular lottery is the same no matter the jackpot. For selling a winning EuroMillions ticket, the Shandon Street Centra will collect €25,000. It is not to be sniffed at for sure but it is 0.01 per cent of the jackpot. What makes some of the prizes even less lavish than they first appear is that they have to be shared among shops if there is more than one winner.
What do you mean?
Well, it doesn't apply in this case, as there was just one winning ticket sold, but if a Lotto or EuroMillions jackpot is shard among two or more ticket holders, then the resulting cash the shops get must also be shared.
READ MORE
Still, better than nothing. Now, enough about the shops, let's get back to me. I didn't win the EuroMillions but is that because I bought my ticket in the wrong shop?
Well, it is worth noting that the odds of winning the EuroMillions jackpot are 140 million to one against, which means you are far more likely to be struck by lightning several times. Mind you, the odds of you being born and able to read this sentence were around four trillion to one and yet that happened. But to get back to your question, the odds stay the same no matter where you buy your ticket although, there do appear to be some shops that are luckier than others.
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Graham Norton's pad and a trip to space: what else could Ireland's newest EuroMillions winner buy with €250m?
Opens in new window
]
I'm all ears ...
Okay, so, there are quite a few shops in line for the title of the luckiest in Ireland. One of the top contenders is Carey's newsagents in Belmullet, Co Mayo. At the end of 2024 it sold the winning ticket for a jackpot worth just under €5.4 million. Back in 2017, one of its customers won €370,000, while in the same year another person – well, we have to hope they were different people – won €1 million in the Daily Million drawn. A year earlier it sold a jackpot-winning ticket worth
just under €14 million
while in 2015, a customer won the EuroMillions Plus top prize of €500,000. Then there was the €350,000 Lotto Plus 1 ticket it sold in 2012 and another jackpot-winning ticket worth €710,000 in 1991.
That must be the luckiest shop in Ireland so?
It depends on how you do your calculations. In 2005 the GO Stores in Garryowen, Limerick sold a EuroMillions quick pick to
Dolores McNamara
and she won €115 million.
Ah, but that was a one-off, right?
Actually no. In April 2024, the very same shop sold a winning ticket worth just under €9 million.
Are there any other contenders?
There are of course. There is the SuperValu in Bailieborough, which has sold three jackpot-winning tickets worth a total of almost €12 million. Wallaces in the Wexford town of Wellingtonbridge has also sold three tickets, with the cash value of its biggest prizes coming in at about €5 million.
And while 13 might be an unlucky number for some, 2013 was a very lucky year for the Tesco in Mullingar, which sold not one but two jackpot-winning tickets worth a total of more than €11 million.
That's a lot of lucky shops
And there are more. The Centra in Ballybrack might also stake a claim, having sold a €86.7 million jackpot-winning ticket in 2014, while in 2016 a syndicate of friends won more than €66 million after buying a ticket in the Eason's store in the Fairgreen Shopping Centre in Carlow.
Eason's in Thurles also sold a €17 million jackpot-winning ticket in 2018.
And what about online?
It hasn't done great in the EuroMillions stakes so far, with only one winner, who recorded a €49.5 million haul in 2020.
So, tell me this, am I better off buying a ticket in a shop that has sold loads of jackpot-winning tickets or one that has never sold any? If the odds of selling one ticket are long, the odds of selling two or three or four must be immeasurably longer?
Honestly, it doesn't make the slightest difference. Your odds of winning the EuroMillions will remain at, as we said, 140 million to one no matter where you buy your ticket. The odds of winning the regular Lotto are almost 11 million to one and no amount of superstition or lucky numbers is going to change that fact.
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