Euro millions lottery History
Euromillions was launched by Camelot in the United Kingdom, the Française des Jeux in France, the Loterías y Apuestas del Estado in Spain on the 7th of February 2004, whilst the first Euro Million lottery draw took place in Paris, France on Friday the 13th of February 2004.
It has since that date always been drawn in France, and then broadcast on National TV channels around europe every Friday night, in March 2011 it was announced by Camelot in the UK that a 2nd euromillions draw would be introduced to take place on a Tuesday night starting in May 2011.
After the lauch of euro-millions lottery game in 2004, on the 8th of October 2004 the eurolottery franchise grew when the original member countries accepted Switzerland, Portugal, Luxembourg, Ireland, Austria and Belgium to take part in the lotto game, this made it a massive continent lottery game. By adding on additional countries (with more countries expected to join soon) the euromillions became more able to compete with the massive American lotteries.
The euromillion has one big advantage of the American lotto games, the jackpots in the United States lotteries are paid out over a number and years and tax is deducted from winnings. The euro-millions however is paid out in one lump sum and is tax free, this makes it attractive to global players as rollover jackpots can easily top £100 million before the prize fund is won.
Euromillions Millionaire raffle
At it’s launch in 2004 mainland europe tickets cost two euro’s each, whereas in the United Kingdom euromillions tickets cost just £1.50. As the two curriencies became more inline Camelot increased the UK ticket price to £2.00 to bring it inline with mainland europe prices.
At the same time of doing this, it also introduced a UK only game which guaranteed to create one UK millionaire per euromillions draw, ontop of the existing eurolottery game. The game was called “Euro Millions Millionaire Raffle” and was launched in November 2009.
The raffle game is played automatically when someone purchases a euromillions ticket in the UK. At the time of purchase a random raffle ticket number is printed onto the ticket, and then entered into the Friday draw in which one UK ticket holder will win £1,000,000 per draw guarnateed.
From time to time like the euromillions superdraws, there will also be Millionaire Raffle Superdraws. Millionaire raffle superdraws are when multi entries are chosed with each selected number winning one million pounds. At the time of writting there have been two, these are:
* 12 November 2010 – 10 millionaires created in special draw
* 24th December 2010 – 25 millionaires to be created
More millionaire raffle superdraws are said to be planned but as of yet not announced.
Euromillions Tuesday draw addtional lucky stars starting May 2011
The euromillions has announced it will be switching from one to two draws per week, by adding on an additional Tuesday night draw starting from Tuesday the 10th of May 2011.
Tickets for the first ever Tuesday Euromillions draw which will be a superdraw with a guarnteed £85 million jackpot will be on sale from Saturday May the 7th 2011.
At the same time the number of lucky stars needed to win the overall jackpot will increase from the current 2 stars, to a new number yet to be announced by the euromillions operators.
The idea of doing this is to make the game harder to win, and to increase the value of rollover jackpots. At the same time a new prize category will be introduced for matching just 2 main numbers, and this is understood to be worth £3.