Lotteries are generally restricted to the geographical location of the lottery issuers. Some of the draws are open throughout the country and very few are open for the European public. Amongst these few international ones, the most famous and popular one is the Euromillions jackpot. The euromillions lottery is open to all the people in Europe, subject to their respective countries’ acceptance of lottery purchase. As long as the buyers’ country allows the purchase of lotteries, the buyers are eligible for buying and winning the jackpot. Euromillions lottery was launched in the year 2004, amidst a lot of fanfare. It was an instant hit amongst the public and regular lottery buyers in Europe. Apart from the international appeal, euromillions lottery is also popular because of its simplicity of the modality. In this lottery, the players will need to select any five main whole numbers from 1 to 50. They will also need to select two additional lucky star numbers from a pre defined pool of 11 numbers. The winners are concluded based on a predefined combination of main numbers and lucky stars. The prize money that is distributed to the winners is based on the complexity of the combinations. As a result, lower digit combinations have lower prize money and the highest possible combination is reserved for the jackpot draw.

Euromillions lottery has many participating countries. This lottery originated in France and the participating countries were Spain and UK, apart from France. Very soon, other European countries – Belgium, Austria, Luxemburg, Ireland, Switzerland and Portugal also joined in. Euromillions has a bi weekly draw – every Tuesdays and Fridays. The major attraction with the Euromillions is the fact that the winnings are completely tax free in all the participating countries, excepting Switzerland. The lottery tickets are also very competitively priced – they cost just 2 Euros in their basic form and 3 Euros if the buyers opt for the plus option. The plus option is available only in Portugal and Ireland. The jackpot amount is a pool fund that gets accumulated after very draw, if there are no winners. The jackpot amount is subject to a cap and excess money is rolled over to the next highest combination – and so on. There are very few winners of the jackpot prize money and these few winners have become instant celebrities, apart from becoming instant millionaires!