Most people would love to win the lottery. The very idea of winning a significant amount of money is enough to make some people cry and large jackpots is what the majority of lotteries around the world tend to offer. Of course, some some lotteries being easier to win than others, though being ‘easier to win’ than a different type of lottery isn’t the same as saying that something is easy to win. There is very little in life that can be considered easy to win, with even ‘bankers’ coming with risks.
It also depends what you mean by ‘hardest to win’. The Spanish lottery known as el Gordo can have prize money as high as £2 billion, for example, but you can’t win that figure all on your own. In fact, the top prize is often more like £340,000. If you can’t win the sum total on offer then that is naturally ‘hard’ to win. In terms of the odds, the Italian SuperEnaLotto is the toughest to enjoy success in, with the odds on winning the top prize sitting at 1 in 622 million.
To give you some context, it is twice as hard to win the SuperEnaLotto than it is to win the American Powerball.
The SuperEnaLotto
| What You’ve Matched | Odds Of Doing So |
|---|---|
| 6 Numbers | 1 in 622,614,630 |
| 5 Numbers + Jolly | 1 in 103,769,105 |
| 5 Numbers | 1 in 1,250,230 |
| 4 Numbers | 1 in 11,907 |
| 3 Numbers | 1 in 327 |
| 2 Numbers | 1 in 21.51 |
First played in Italy in 1997, the SuperEnaLotto has a draw every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, usually at 8pm. It is a modification of the Enalotto, which has been in existence since the 1950s.
SISAL decided to change it to create the SuperEnalotto, which saw its six numbers taken from the first number drawn in Lottomatica’s regional Lotto draws that took place in Bari, Florence, Milan, Naples, Palermo and Rome. The Venice draw was used as what was known as the ‘Jolly’ number. If the first number drawn had been used before then the second number would be used instead.
Nowadays, tickets cost €1 for a play, with the object being to match your six numbers to the six numbers that are drawn out of 90. If a player pulls this off then they won the jackpot, with five other prize categories also on offer. If you match five numbers and the Jolly number, for example, then you will won something. As long as you match two numbers then you’ll be able to win at least something. There is also the SuperStar draw, which offers another chance to win for an extra €1.
The table above shows a breakdown of the odds for the SuperEnaLotto. To give you a sense of your chances of winning, it is 4.45 times harder to win the SuperEnaLotto than it is to win the EuroMillions.
Judging by the metric of odds, the SuperEnaLotto is the toughest to win in the world. The amount that you can win can become eye-watering, however. In February of 2023, 90 players hit the jackpot and shared €371,133,424.51, taking home €4,123,704.72 each. The largest amount won by a single person is €209,160,441.54, which was won in August of 2019 on a ticket that had been bought in a bar in in the city of Lodi.
Other Lotteries That Are Hard To Win
Whilst the SuperEnaLotto takes the crown for being the toughest lottery to win, it isn’t the only one with astronomical odds. The fact that the odds are twice as high as the next most difficult lottery helps to indicate just how unlikely you are to win it, however.
Here is a quick look at the next two tricky jackpots to be on the winning end of:
Mega Millions
| What You’ve Matched | Odds Of Doing So |
|---|---|
| 5 Numbers + Mega Ball | 1 in 302,575,350 |
| 5 Numbers | 1 in 12,607,306 |
| 4 Numbers + Mega Ball | 1 in 931,001 |
| 4 Numbers | 1 in 38,792 |
| 3 Numbers + Mega Ball | 1 in 14,547 |
| 3 Numbers | 1 in 606 |
| 2 Numbers + Mega Ball | 1 in 693 |
| 1 Number + Mega Ball | 1 in 89 |
| Mega Ball | 1 in 37 |
It is not a surprise that the odds are against you when playing the lottery. Given the fact that you stand to make hundreds of millions of pounds if you win the biggest lotteries out there, no one is shocked to learn that that might not be all that easy to do.
When the jackpot reaches an astronomical amount, that is usually because it has rolled over several times. The reality is, though, that the odds of triggering the jackpot remain the same throughout. When it comes to the Mega Millions, the table above shows how the odds work out for the various prizes.
Whilst prizes outside of the jackpot are relatively easy to win, the main prize remains close to impossible. Given the fact that the EuroMillions top prize has odds of 1 in 139,838,160, it is more than twice as hard to win the Mega Millions than it is its European equivalent.
Powerball
| What You’ve Matched | Odds Of Doing So |
|---|---|
| 5 Numbers + Powerball | 1 in 292,201,338 |
| 5 Numbers | 1 in 11,688,053.52 |
| 4 Numbers + Powerball | 1 in 913,129.18 |
| 4 Numbers | 1 in 36,525.17 |
| 3 Numbers + Powerball | 1 in 14,494.11 |
| 3 Numbers | 1 in 579.76 |
| 2 Numbers + Powerball | 1 in 701.33 |
| 1 Number + Powerball | 1 in 91.98 |
| Powerball | 1 in 38.32 |
Of course, the Mega Millions isn’t the only lottery in the United States of America that is extremely tricky to win. The Powerball is another one that is played on a regular basis by punters in the US, thanks in no small part to the huge sums of money that can be won.
At the time of writing, for example, the largest prize ever paid out on is in excess of $1.5 billion; albeit that that figure is before taxes are paid on the winning amount. The table above takes a look at the odds for the prizes on offer.
It is still more unlikely that you’ll win the Powerball than the Euromillions, but when you’re talking about hundreds of millions to one, it’s really just a matter of degrees.
The Odds Of Various Lotteries
| Country | Lottery | Top Prize Odds |
|---|---|---|
| Italy | SuperEnaLotto | 1 in 622,614,630 |
| United States of America | Mega Millions | 1 in 302,573,350 |
| United States of America | Powerball | 1 in 292,201,338 |
| Europe (Various) | EuroMillions | 1 in 139,838,160 |
| Brazil | MegaSena | 1 in 50,063,860 |
| South Africa | Lotto | 1 in 31,625,100 |
| Brazil | Quina | 1 in 24,040,016 |
| France | Lotto | 1 in 19,068,840 |
| Poland | Lotto | 1 in 13,983,816 |
| Ireland | Lotto | 1 in 10,737,573 |
The table above takes a look at the odds of winning the top prize of the biggest lotteries on offer, starting with the longest odds.
As you can see the odds of the SuperEnaLotto completely dwarf those of any other lottery, but even the two US major jackpots are as much as 30 times hard to win than the Lotto in Ireland.