With many popular lottery (and society raffle) options in the UK, including the Postcode Lottery, the Euromillions lottery, the National Lottery, scratch cards, and The Health Lottery, lottery ticket prices can vary enormously. The odds of winning as well as the jackpots available do vary between lotteries.
What to consider when comparing lotteries
Doing your research to establish how much it costs to play the lottery against your odds of winning may help you decide which lottery games are right for you. Keep reading as we break down the costs of the most well-known lotteries in the UK and Britain with a special focus on The Health Lottery, which prioritizes affordability for its players and uses a proportion of game proceeds to help tackle health inequality in Great Britain.
How much does a lottery ticket cost?
With a bounty of lottery options, there is an equally large range of lottery ticket costs. Some lottery ticket cost the collection of coins you might find in your sofa while others can cost more than a fancy coffee order. Each lottery structure has its own ticket budget range, odds of winning, and payout systems that may make one of the UK's most popular lotteries a more fitting choice for you. From weekly draw lotteries to play and win games, lottery ticket costs can fall anywhere between £1 to over £5. Instant win lottery games can cost even less, with some costing as little as 10p. In these cases, the maximum jackpot is usually reduced too, but if your minimum criterion is affordable play, there are definitely games out there to suit your pocket.
How much does the Postcode Lottery cost to play?
The Postcode Lottery is not a typical lottery. Rather than choosing your lottery numbers, they are determined by your postal code. If your residential postal code is drawn, you and other players within that postal code can split any winnings. PPL is also not a lottery at all, but is, technically, a society raffle, which can only be played by subscription. It currently costs £12 a month to play, for which the player gets entered into every draw that takes place.
On weekdays, there are £1,000 cash prizes to be won, Saturdays boast a larger pot of £1 Million, and on Sundays, each player could win up to £30,000. The Postcode Lottery structure is subscription based and you can continuously enter without having to put any thought into participation - until you win! Members are entered into new draws on a daily basis.
How much does a Euromillions lottery ticket cost?
Euromillions is a transnational lottery. The UK may have left the European Union, but British players still play the Euromillions lottery keenly, joining players from Ireland, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Austria and Switzerland (also not in the E.U.).
The massive amount of Euromillions lottery players results in a very impressive prize pool. Euromillions has notoriously slim odds of winning its top jackpot compared to many other lotteries. However, because the jackpots are by far the biggest to be won outside of North America, millions play it every week. In the first week of October 2024 over 138 million Euromillions tickets were sold in the UK!
Draws take place on Tuesdays and Fridays and each player has the chance to pick up to 7 lines of numbers on up to 10 payslips per purchase. Players are also able to choose whether they’d like to play in Tuesday’s or Friday’s draw, or both, and for how many weeks they would like to enter those numbers
Euromillions lottery ticket cost: £2.50/line.
How much does it cost to play The Health Lottery?
The Health Lottery stands out against most others in the UK due to its focus on giving back to the community, affordability to play, and fair odds of winning. With over £132m to good causes, money raised from lottery ticket sales are used to give grants to thousands of small charities doing vital work at the local level. They support the health and well-being of people living in some of the most disadvantaged communities in Great Britain right now. Whether you win or lose, you can feel good about playing the lottery with The Health Lottery.
It should be noted that all the major lotteries, both national and smaller society lotteries also give a good proportion of their ticket price to good causes, and many of these last are also pitched at The Health Lottery’s more affordable £1 price point and we discuss some of these here.
All reputable lotteries, including The Health Lottery also place focus on healthy habits by tracking the way you play in real time. We will call out signs of potentially unhealthy or unsafe gambling behaviour. Advice and support for gambling addiction or concerning behaviour surrounding lottery play is available to all players through The Health Lottery.
The Health Lottery offers several popular games including The Big Win, where players can win up to £25,000 5 times a week with an additional £100,000 to be won on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The Health Lottery also offers special savings for VIP members who elect to play The Big Win by monthly subscription. All of the same prizes are there for you to win – for even less outlay!
With better odds – you’re up to 21 times more likely to win a Big Win jackpot than the Lotto - you’ll also have a better than 1 in 10,000 chance to scoop £300 and a 1 in 224 chance to win a tenner – for under 80p a line!
Other games hosted by The Health Lottery include All or Nothing and QuickWin. All or Nothing has players try to match all (or none) of their 12 chosen numbers to win either of the two £25,000 jackpots available in every draw, which take place on Tuesday and Friday. QuickWin is our online virtual lottery where players can pick 5 numbers for a chance to win 25,000 with a fresh draw every 3 minutes!
With a few different lotteries available and many instant win games starting at enticingly low prices, The Health Lottery has something for everyone.
Health Lottery ticket cost:
- £1/lottery ticket
- Instant win games as low as 10p
How much does it cost to play the National Lottery?
The National Lottery is the single most popular lottery option in the UK. It claims to make an average of two British millionaires every week, and it costs £2 to play. In order to hit those millions, a player needs to match 6 numbers selected from 1-59 (at odds of 1:45,057,474).
National Lottery (Lotto) ticket price: £2.
How much does it cost to play scratch cards?
Scratch cards are a great lottery structure for players who get the most thrill out of winning in the moment and don’t want delayed gratification. Simply scratch to reveal any potential winnings. Prizes range from a free go to winnings of up to £1,000,000.
There are many scratch card games available for purchase from over thousands of retailers throughout the UK and many online locations. Pricing for each scratch card varies and so do potential winnings.
It’s up to you…
When it comes to lotteries, raffles and instant win games it remains the player’s choice - spend small for smaller winnings with better odds or spend big for a chance to win the big bucks, which is usually a significantly less likely outcome.
Whatever you choose, please make sure you play within your means, and if it stops being fun, stop playing!
