Portugal tops Euromillions jackpot rankings, while Luxembourg lags behind despite growing lottery revenues

Portugal and Luxembourg find themselves at opposite ends of the good-luck table when it comes to the pan-European lottery. Winning the first Euromillions prize in Portugal is always an event, but it’s not exactly rare anymore.

There are only three – out of the country’s 18 – districts where the top Euromillions prize has not yet been won: Beja, in the south, Évora, east of Lisbon and Guarda, in northern Portugal.

Portugal is at the top of the list of countries that have won the Euromillions jackpot the most times, just behind the United Kingdom, France and Spain. At first glance, compared to the population of each of these countries, it seems that Portugal has been considerably luckier, with 77 top prize winners.

On the other hand, it’s no secret that the poorest countries spend the most on games of chance. Portugal’s luck can perhaps be explained by the fact that residents have spent more than €16 billion on Euromillions tickets, and received almost €8 billion back in prizes.

Bad luck in Luxembourg?

At the tail end of the unluckiest is Luxembourg, accompanied by Belgium, Austria, Ireland and Switzerland.

Luxembourg may be one the richest countries in the world, but this hasn’t always translated into playing the Euromillions or other games of chance.

However, that seems to be changing. According to Léon Losch, director of the National Lottery, the number of bets and gaming revenues in Luxembourg have never grown so much. “The year 2024 marks a new record for the National Lottery, with exceptional gross gaming revenue of €90.9 million, which represents growth of 18.2% compared to 2023,” which had already broken records, Losch said in a statement.

He added that “the prizes paid out to players in the Grand Duchy have also increased impressively, already exceeding €178 million”.

According to Losch, not only have the number of bets grown, but almost all games in Luxembourg have increased exponentially, following “the development of sports betting in 2023, with the installation of terminals and the launch of the Loteriesport.lu website, the only legal sports betting site in Luxembourg, which have contributed decisively to these results.

“In 2024, the VLT and sports betting activities generated gross gaming revenue of €36.6 million, representing growth of 51.5%.”

(This article was first published by Contacto. Translated using AI, edited by Aaron Grunwald.)