Best Lotteries to Play Online 2024

With the large number of options available around the world today, choosing the best lotteries to play online is no small task. 

Online lottery websites give you access to many lotteries that you previously might only have dreamt of entering. While that is obviously a good thing, they make the task of choosing a lottery to play even harder.

Thankfully, there are many things that you can look at to determine how different lotto games stack up against each other.

In this article, we will look at which lotteries are best to play based on the following criteria:

• Biggest Jackpots
• Biggest Minimum Jackpots
• Best Jackpot Odds
• Best Overall Odds
• Best-Balanced Lotteries
• Cheapest Ticket Prices
• Best Tax-Free Lotteries
• Best Daily Lotteries
• Best Add-On Lottery Games
• Cost Investment vs. Jackpot Reward

We’ll also cover the Lotteries With the Worst Odds (in case you want to avoid them, despite their enticing jackpots).

So, without wasting any more time, let’s jump right in.

Biggest Jackpots

One of the first things that people look at when choosing which lottery to play is the jackpot.

This is completely understandable. After all, who wants to play in a lottery that doesn’t offer a truly life-changing prize?

To get perspective if a lottery really offers jackpots that pique your interest, it is best to look at the biggest jackpots a lottery game has had in its history.

Below are 15 lotteries that have offered staggering jackpots in the past and could offer even higher ones in the future:

*All jackpot prizes have been converted into USD for easier comparison. Conversions were correct at the time of writing this article.

As the table shows, the jackpots of US Powerball and Mega Millions are by far the biggest in the world.

That’s why these games are as popular as they are, and the more popular they become, the bigger their jackpots get.

That said, several of the other games in the list still have mind-boggling jackpots. Based on this, you’ll know which lotteries’ jackpots to keep an eye on in case they hit record highs again.

Biggest Minimum Jackpots

While knowing how big a jackpot can get gives you a good perspective of which lotteries are best for having mind-blowing prizes, it is wise to also look at what the minimum jackpots of lotteries are.

Thankfully, many lotteries today offer decent minimum jackpots. These are certainly enough to change anyone’s life and are still great to win-even if they don’t break any records.

Below are 15 lotteries from around the world that offer the best minimum jackpots:

*All jackpot prizes have been converted into USD for easier comparison. Conversions were correct at the time of writing this article.

**The normal minimum jackpots for US Powerball and Mega Millions are $40 million. However, due to COVID-19 pandemic that affected lotteries around the world in 2020, they have temporarily been reduced to $20 million.

***The minimum jackpots for UK Lotto vary depending on which day the draw is held. For the Wednesday draws the minimum jackpot is £2 million, but for the Saturday draws it’s almost double at £3.8 million.

****The minimum jackpots for Germany Lotto vary depending on which day the draw is held. For the Wednesday draws the minimum jackpot is €1 million, but for the Saturday draws it’s €3 million.

Best Jackpot Odds

Knowing which jackpot you want to win is great. However, another important factor worth considering is what your chances of actually winning that jackpot are.

This could sometimes be even more important than the jackpot on offer. After all, what good is a massive jackpot if your chances of winning it are virtually nil?

While there are many games that have similar odds, there are also others that are rather awful-Italy SuperEnalotto comes to mind.

The unfortunate thing is that lotteries that have amazing odds generally don’t have fantastic jackpots.

Below are 10 lotteries that have the best jackpot odds of any games in the world, as well as the largest jackpots they have ever paid out:

As shown above, having great odds usually means that you won’t win amazing jackpots. In fact, lotteries that feature record-breaking jackpots usually tend to have much tougher odds.

This is shown even more clearly in the table below, which shows the odds of winning for all the lotteries that have paid out record jackpots:

*All jackpot prizes have been converted into USD for easier comparison. Conversions were correct at the time of writing this article.

While the odds of the lotteries listed above are significantly worse than those in the previous table, there are lotteries that offer good odds and nice jackpots. We’ll cover this in more detail later when we discuss the best-balanced lotteries.

Worst Jackpot Odds

Aside from knowing which lotteries have the best jackpot odds, you may also want to know which have the worst. This may be simply so that you can avoid them. After all, the chances of winning are pretty slim.

However, while these lotteries offer substantially tougher odds than others, it is important to note that they regularly still have jackpot winners. These players were able to beat all the odds and claim their jackpots. And you never know, you could be the next one to do just that.

Below are 10 lotteries that have the toughest jackpot odds around. Several of these lotteries have identical game formats and, therefore, also have the same odds of winning.

Best Overall Odds

One thing to always remember about the lottery is that it is not always about the jackpot. After all, many lotteries have great secondary prizes.

Because of this, it is also important to look for a lottery that gives you the best chance of winning something-even if that something isn’t the jackpot.

Below are 10 lotteries that offer the best odds of winning any prize from their prize tiers.

Best-Balanced Lotteries

As seen in the tables below, there are plenty of lotteries with great odds that don’t have exciting jackpots and plenty with great jackpots but also tough odds. For this reason, playing a balanced lottery is one of the best lottery strategies there is.

Below are 10 lotteries that we think have a great balance between solid jackpot amounts and fair odds of winning. We have listed these in descending order based on their largest jackpot amounts.

*All jackpot prizes have been converted into USD for easier comparison. Conversions were correct at the time of writing this article.

Cheapest Ticket Prices

Another factor to consider is what playing the lottery will cost you before you start playing. This is because you may not want to spend too much money before you start earning anything back.

It also means that if a lottery is cheaper, you can buy more tickets for it and increase your chances of winning.

To help you do just that, we’ve compiled the 20 cheapest lotteries to play below:

*All ticket prices have been converted into USD for easier comparison. Conversions were correct at the time of writing this article.
**All of the Filipino lotteries normally cost PHP 24 (~$0.48) per line, but the prices have been temporarily lowered to PHP 20 (~$0.40) since September 2020 due to hardships caused by COVID-19.

Best Tax-Free Lotteries

One of the worst things to think about after winning the lottery is the fact that you might have to pay tax on your winnings.

This is because, in some countries-like the USA-the taxman can take a sizeable amount of your winnings before you even receive them.

Thankfully, there are some lotteries that are ‘tax-free’ in the sense that you will receive the exact amount advertised as the jackpot.

This may not take into account any taxes you may have to pay in your home country. However, it is still great to know you are getting what you actually won from the lottery operator.

Below are 10 of the best ‘tax-free’ lotteries based on their highest jackpot payout.

*All jackpot prizes have been converted into USD for easier comparison. Conversions were correct at the time of writing this article.

Best Daily Lotteries

Playing the lottery once or twice a week is fine. There are plenty of people who do that every week. However, the standard rule is that the more often you play, the sooner you will win.

This logic leads perfectly to the many daily lottery games that are held around the world. These games offer daily chances to win some great prizes. Because of this, they have a solid following of players who make sure to get their tickets each day.

Below are 10 of the best daily** lotteries to play in. These are listed according to the highest jackpot they have ever had. We included the odds of winning each lottery as well.

*All jackpot prizes have been converted into USD for easier comparison. Conversions were correct at the time of writing this article.

**Some of these lotteries feature draws each day of the week aside from Sundays.

Best Add-On Lottery Games

While playing your favourite lottery is great, playing your chosen lottery and getting an extra chance to win is even greater. This becomes even more true if you don’t win in the main draw.

Add-on games offer a solution to this problem.

For a small fee on your initial ticket price, your ticket will be entered into a secondary draw that takes place after the main draw. These draws usually have their own odds of winning and pay tables.

Below are 10 of the best add-on lotteries that we have come across. They are listed according to their highest jackpot.

*All jackpot prizes have been converted into USD for easier comparison. Conversions were correct at the time of writing this article.

Cost Investment vs. Jackpot Reward

While we know that going for the best jackpots is simple, the cost of playing until you eventually hit the jackpot is also something to consider.

This is especially true if you are looking to go after one of the big jackpots offered by large international games.

To help you figure out what is the best lottery to play if you are looking to keep your ticket price low, we’ve looked at which lotteries offer the best reward for the lowest price.

Below are 10 lotteries that offer great jackpots without breaking the bank. The lotteries are sorted based on their largest jackpot. 

*All figures have been converted into USD for easier comparison. Conversions were correct at the time of writing this article.

You may have noticed that some lotteries that have the cheapest tickets are not listed above. This is because, despite offering cheap tickets, their jackpots are nothing to get excited about. 

Lottery Comparison Table

While seeing the lists comprising all the different criteria above is great, you may be looking for a more overall picture of lotteries from around the world.

So, to help you decide exactly which lottery you would like to play, we have combined all the above criteria and lotteries into a single table.

We even included a few extra lotteries we didn’t mention above that would have been honourable mentions.

All of the lotteries are displayed according to their biggest jackpots.

*All figures have been converted into USD for easier comparison. Conversions were correct at the time of writing this article.

**This is the minimum jackpot for Saturday draws. For Wednesday draws, the minimum jackpot is set at $1.19 million.

Conclusion

Knowing which lottery to play is 50% guesswork, 50% research and 100% luck.

However, knowing how a lottery compares to other games is an important factor to consider when you are looking for a new lotto to play. Being equipped with this information can make all the difference in whether or not you win something big one day.

At the end of the day, regardless of all the statistics, tables and information available for each lottery game, there are many games that you may want to play.

We hope, therefore, that this article has helped make the decision of what to play a bit easier for you. Hopefully, the next time you buy lottery tickets online or in person you’ll know exactly what to look for.