£169M EuroMillions Jackpot Must Be Won On Tuesday 8th October
Last Updated: Wednesday 23rd September 2020, 13:53
After going without a winner for nearly three straight months, the current £169 million (€190 million) EuroMillions jackpot must be won on Tuesday 8th October. The entire amount will be given away in the draw on that date, even if no one matches all the winning numbers.
EuroMillions Jackpot Not Won Since 19th July
The last three months have seen an unprecedented run of EuroMillions rollovers, during which the jackpot has climbed all the way from its starting amount of approximately £15 million to its current value of £169 million. The jackpot has now reached its cap, meaning it can’t increase any further, and rules state that it can only stay at that amount for a maximum of five draws.
On 8th October the jackpot will have been at its cap for five consecutive draws, meaning all of it is guaranteed to be won on that date.
It has been a record-breaking period for EuroMillions. It is the first time that a jackpot has gone the full five draws at its cap and only the second time that a Must Be Won draw has ever been held; the first was all the way back on 17th November 2006. No one matched all the numbers to win the jackpot in that draw so the prize money was instead split between 20 players in the ‘Match 5+1’ tier, with each of them winning £6.7 million (€9.6 million).
It’s possible that Tuesday’s draw could go just the same way.
How Do Must Be Won Draws Work?
In most respects, Must Be Won draws are exactly the same as any other draw. Five numbers and two Lucky Stars are still drawn, and players can still win the jackpot by matching all of them. The big difference is in what happens if no one does that.
In any ordinary draw, if the jackpot doesn’t get won it rolls over and increases in value for the next draw. If no one matches five numbers and both Lucky Stars in a Must Be Won draw, however, the entire £169 million will be shared between players in the next winning tier below. That means you could win a share of the jackpot by matching five numbers and just one Lucky Star.
If it transpires that no one wins in that prize tier either, the jackpot would be shared by winners in the next winning tier, for matching five numbers only. This is unlikely to happen, though. To date in 2019, only seven draws - eight percent of the total - have gone without a winner in the ‘Match 5+1’ tier, and the extra interest generated by the Must Be Won draw means that a lot of extra tickets will be sold for it.
Tips for the £169 Million Must Be Won Draw
Events like Tuesday’s Must Be Won draw do not come along very often. If a single UK player wins the jackpot, it will break the record for the biggest ever won in the UK, a record that has been held by Chris and Colin Weir for eight years. With that in mind, here are a few tips to consider for the draw:
- Get your tickets early - Over 134 million entries were sold for the Must Be Won draw in 2006. That’s two for every person in the UK and more than double the amount sold for the most recent EuroMillions draw on Friday 4th October. With that in mind, make sure you get your tickets well ahead of the deadline so you don’t miss out due to queues at your local shop or technical issues online. You can purchase tickets in shops until 7.30pm on the day of the draw, and online right up until the draw is set to take place.
- Consider joining a syndicate - Thanks to the Must Be Won draw, the odds of winning a share of the jackpot could be slashed from 1 in 139 million to 1 in 6.9 million, as you might not have to match all the numbers to win it. Joining an online syndicate can improve your odds even further, as you will have a share of multiple lines. With the jackpot as high as it is at the moment, you would still walk away with a multimillion-pound prize.
- Check your ticket carefully - With so much money on the line, you need to make sure you check your tickets carefully. If you’re planning on buying multiple lines, that’s even more important, as it’s easy to skim over a winning line when checking more than one at the same time. Enter your numbers into the EuroMillions Results Checker for a quick and simple way to find out if you’ve won. You can also check the UK Millionaire Maker raffle code; in all the excitement of the £169 million draw, don’t forget that you can also win £1 million in the raffle.