The lower jackpots are part of a plan Camalot put in place at the same time they put the price up, they also operate the Euro Millions in the UK too, so there’s little point making it appeal to punters after big wins because the Euros will always be bigger so why compete with yourself?
The National Lottery now offers better prizes for smaller wins (although £500 for 5 numbers sounds a kick in the spuds!) and there’s a raffle element.
So if you’re looking for a reasonable chance (relative to lotteries) of winning a couple of quid, maybe a few hundreds and a 14 million to 1 or so chance of winning more than a million play the National Lottery, it’s closer to ‘normal gambling’.
If you want to buy into a dream of winning tens of millions you play the Euros – the odds aren’t as good – 76 million combinations of numbers apparently, but they do share the pot with lessor winners if it gets too big.
I play the Euro now and again, it’s nice to day dream about garages full of exotic cars or private jet flights to Whistler with your mates – but does anyone play to actually win it? Do people sit there Friday night desperately holding onto their ticket prying for the win?