At a glance
- Price
- €4 per play
- Format
- Pick 6 from 1–45, plus a Bonus Ball drawn from what's left
- Draw days
- Wednesday and Saturday
- Minimum jackpot
- €2,000,000
- Jackpot odds
- 1 in 8,145,060
- Any prize
- roughly 1 in 25.4
- Prize tiers
- Eight
How to play
Pick six numbers from 1 to 45. At the draw, six main balls are pulled, then a seventh — the Bonus Ball — is drawn from the 39 that are left. The Bonus Ball only matters if you've already matched five of your six main numbers; it isn't a number you choose yourself.
A play costs €4. Draws are held on Wednesday and Saturday, and results are published on lottery.ie and broadcast on RTÉ shortly afterwards.
Every Lotto play also gets you an entry into the National Lottery's side games, Lotto Plus 1 and Lotto Plus 2, at no extra cost — separate draws with their own guaranteed prizes, run straight after the main game on the same numbers. Check lottery.ie for their current guaranteed amounts, since we haven't been able to confirm a current figure ourselves.
Prize tiers and odds
| Match | Odds | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | 1 in 8,145,060 | Jackpot, min. €2,000,000 |
| 5 + Bonus | 1 in 1,357,510 | €75,000 |
| 5 | 1 in 35,724 | €1,200 |
| 4 + Bonus | 1 in 14,290 | €120 |
| 4 | 1 in 772 | €40 |
| 3 + Bonus | 1 in 579 | €20 |
| 3 | 1 in 48 | €4 |
| 2 + Bonus | 1 in 64 | €4 |
| Any prize | roughly 1 in 25.4 | — |
The jackpot and the prizes above it are pari-mutuel and vary with sales and winner counts; the fixed amounts shown for the lower tiers are the published minimums. Always confirm current figures with lottery.ie before you play.
Not the old 6-from-42 (or 6-from-45) game you remember
Irish Lotto has changed shape more than once. It's currently a 6-from-45 game, and it's worth being specific about that because plenty of older write-ups online still describe an earlier, smaller ball pool — the range has been widened over the years specifically to slow the game down and let jackpots build. If a source you're reading quotes different odds than the ones above, it's most likely describing a past version of the game.
Tax-free, paid as a lump sum
One genuine point of difference from the UK and US games on this site: Irish Lottery prizes, including the jackpot, are not taxed, and they're paid out as a single lump sum rather than an annuity. There's no "cash versus annuity" decision to make, because there's only one option.
What the odds actually mean
1 in 8,145,060 is long, but it's noticeably shorter than the EuroMillions or Powerball jackpots covered elsewhere on this site — both run past 1 in 130 million. At two draws a week, a single line played every draw would take an average of roughly 78,000 years to land the jackpot. Considerably less astronomical than the big multi-country games, but still not a plan.
Nothing about how you pick your six numbers changes any of this. Every combination is exactly as likely as every other on every draw. The one thing number choice affects is how many people you'd share a jackpot with, which is the honest case for a random pick — covered properly in do lucky numbers work?.
Prices, prize amounts and rules change. Confirm the current details with lottery.ie before you play. Lucky Dip is independent and not affiliated with the National Lottery of Ireland.
One tap, no signup, no accounts.
Related reading
Irish Lotto is entertainment, and it's for over-18s only. If it's stopped being fun, the responsible gambling page lists free, confidential support.