Lotteries

Lotteries have been in existence in one form or another probably for centuries but before the internet gambling on lotteries could only be done by buying a ticket in a local shop which meant that effectively only nationals of the country could participate To some extent this is of course still true as online lotteries are not the same as the true lottery itself and it is still not possible to buy a ticket for the Spanish Lottery in Ireland but you can gamble on the result through what we call fixed odds lotteries.

Play Lotteries

In a true lottery when buying a ticket it will have a defined number of numbers on it which is usually 6 although it is of course possible to place multiple entries. When the draw takes place you will win by matching any of the numbers drawn with those on your ticket and the more you can match the more you will win although it can be that matching three numbers has a fixed prize and is the minimum number of matches that wins. Over three matched numbers the prizes will depend on how many other people have the same number of matches and therefore how many people will be dividing the prize pool, indeed it is not unusual for nobody to match all six numbers in a draw in which case the prize pool for that rolls over to the next draw which is how some people can win literally millions of Euro. The other difference between this and online lotteries is that the stake is always the same and equals the price of a ticket although as previously stated you can buy multiple tickets.

Gambling on online lotteries however is what is known as fixed odds gambling so you can vary your stake per line of entry and if you win the odds will be multiplied by your stake to determine your winnings. The numbers drawn in online lotteries are the numbers drawn in the actual lotteries so the draws only take place at certain times of the day or week. If you like gambling on lotteries but cannot wait that long we suggest you try Keno where draws are taking place by random number generator on a continuous basis. The process of winning in online lotteries is however quite different from actually buying a ticket because it is what is called pick and match. In fixed odds lottery gambling you have to match all the numbers you picked in order to win so if you picked 4 numbers to come up and three of them did and one did not you would win nothing; this is a major difference to be aware of. The advantage of online lottery gambling is that you can bet on as few as 1 or 2 numbers and generally on a maximum of 5 although Paddy Power do allow a bet of 6 numbers on some lotteries but you need to match all six to win so if you are going that route it might be better to buy a ticket.

There are a number of Lotteries available for fixed odds gambling the most popular of which are the UK 6 ball and 7 ball, the Irish 6 ball and 7 ball and 49s 6 ball and 7 ball. The UK Lottery takes place on Wednesdays at around 22:30 and Saturdays at around 20:00 and has 49 balls from which 6 are drawn plus a bonus ball and it is the bonus ball which gives you the chance to gamble on a 6 ball result or a 7 ball result. The Irish Lottery on the other hand which takes place on Wednesdays and Saturdays at around 20:00 has only 45 balls and again with the bonus ball you can gamble on a 6 or 7 ball result. 49s is a 49 ball game taking place twice daily at around 13:00 and 17:00 and again gambling is available on a 6 or 7 ball result. The smallest number of balls is in the Irish Monday game and is 39 balls; this takes place at around 20:30 each Monday. The largest number of balls in the lotteries is 59 and this is in the New York Lottery which is also drawn on a Wednesday and a Saturday and again has a bonus ball enabling lottery gambling on 6 or 7 balls. The Spanish Sunday lottery has 54 balls and is drawn at around 11:00 each Sunday morning but there is no bonus ball so it is a straight 6 ball lottery but the Spanish daily is a 49 ball game with a bonus ball. Finally there are two other 49 ball lotteries available on Paddy Power but not on and they are the German and Hong Kong lotteries; the Hong Kong is drawn on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and the German on Wednesdays and Saturdays. As you can see there are lotteries every day of the week for your entertainment.

You would possibly have thought that all bookmakers who carry fixed odds lottery gambling would be offering the same odds as the chances of getting the correct numbers are the same no matter which bookmaker you choose to use but you would be wrong and the differences are sometimes quite large so one again we urge you to open more than one gambling account. As an example of this, on the 49s daily draw a 2 ball win on pays out at 54:1 but at Paddy Power it pays at 60:1 but at Bet365 the same two ball win pays 66:1 and 3 ball wins on the same lottery are 600:1 at and 650:1 at Paddy Power which we think you will agree is a huge difference. Unfortunately it is not the case that Paddy Power is always better than and Bet365 is always better than the other two, the situation is sometimes reversed depending on which lottery and how many numbers are selcted so our only advice can be to check the bookmakers odds before you gamble on the lotteries.