Superdraw Value

The words on the lips of most lottery player for the past few weeks have been ‘EuroMillions Superdraw’. First we were talking about our chances of winning £100 million or more, and then after the draw had taken place we were talking about those who were lucky enough to receive a £7 million slice of the jackpot.

Now I want to continue the topic of conversation by talking about how good value such Superdraw games are from the perspective of winning a second tier prize.

As you may have read elsewhere, the last three EuroMillions superdraw jackpots weren’t won outright but instead rolled down to players who matched five main numbers and one Lucky Star. On all three occasions the second-tier winners received a share of the jackpot worth at least £6.4 million. Since the odds of winning a second-tier prize are 1 in 5,448,240, it seems to me that Superdraw games offer great value for money.

With the odds of matching five main numbers and both Lucky Stars being 1 in 76,275,360, a jackpot of £76.5 million or more potentially offers good value for money if there is only one outright winner. But good value is almost a certainty if nobody wins the jackpot, because you’re now looking at winning more than the odds of hitting a second-tier prize suggest is fair. In the latest superdraw the second-tier prize winners received £7 million for beating odds of 1 in 5.44 million. That’s not a bad deal at all if you ask me.

The mathematicians out there will no doubt find fault with my conclusions, because they would point out that a EuroMillions ticket costs £1.50, and not £1. Fair value would therefore be 50% more than the odds of winning (a jackpot fund of around £114 million). But that isn’t strictly true, because there is more than just a jackpot at stake, and as recent Superdraw results have shown, you don’t need to hit the top prize to come away from the game with a life-changing sum of money.

Statistics aside, I conclude that, whilst we still need plenty of luck to beat the odds, EuroMillions Superdraws offer about as much value as we can currently hope for as far as Lotto games go. They don’t come along very often, so when they do we should take full advantage of them.

Article Last Updated: 18/03/2009 18:10:21

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