Which areas see most lottery wins in France?

Winning a life-changing amount of money in the EuroMillions sounds like a long shot but some parts of France have been better than others.

EuroMillions draws take place twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday evenings.

There is a minimum guaranteed jackpot of €17 million, which can roll over up to a maximum of €240 million.

The odds of winning the jackpot are just one in 139,838,160.

However France has good odds overall. French organising authority la Française des Jeux (FDJ) states that people in the country have been statistically more likely to win than people in the other participating nations of the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Ireland, Austria, Switzerland, and Luxembourg.

In the past 18 years, the FDJ has paid out €4 billion to 118 French people. This compares to 115 in the UK, and 114 in Spain.

The biggest win in France - €220 million - was actually on the overseas island of Tahiti in 2021.

The winner was a young woman who had never previously played. After she won, she said that she wanted to travel the world and ‘discover snow’ as she had never seen it before.

She said she would continue to walk in bare feet, just as she usually does at home.

Jackpot regions

But the good news is, you do not have to go to Tahiti to win the jackpot. In fact, statistically, you are most likely to win in:

• Ile-de-France. Out of all French winners the FDJ said there have been 23 winners from there. This is 17% of the total.
• Next in line is Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (14%)
• Bourgogne-Franche-Comté comes in third (11%).

The least ‘lucky’ regions are Centre-Val de Loire, Pays de la Loire, and Corsica (there has only ever been one winner in the latter).

Sadly, however, it seems that those in Ile-de-France and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur have not discovered some fortune-telling secret. Nor are people from those regions more likely to play than those in others.

Rather, the regions are simply the most densely populated, so they are more likely to have a winner among the crowds.

You do not have to win the jackpot to win something; most recently (on Tuesday, October 31), there were 1.33 million winners across all nine participating countries.

But if the chances of the EuroMillions still elude you, FDJ has recently launched another Europe-wide game: ‘EuroDreams’. Each grid costs €2.50, and the jackpot is €20,000 a month for 30 years (€7.2million).

May the odds be ever in your favour…

Related articles

France's €200million Euromillions winner plans big giveaway

French player wins €162 million in EuroMillions lottery

Can I buy a UK lottery ticket online in France?