The best jackpot odds in the world, ranked

"Which lottery is easiest to win?" has an exact answer, and you do not need anyone's marketing page to get it. Every jackpot probability in this article is derived from the game's published matrix using one formula, and you can check every line with a calculator.

The one formula

For a game where you pick k numbers from a pool of n and must match all of them, the number of possible tickets is the binomial coefficient:

C(n, k) = n! / (k! × (n − k)!)

Your chance of holding the winning line is 1 in C(n, k). If the game adds a second, separate barrel — a Powerball, a Mega Ball, Lucky Stars — the two draws are independent, so the counts multiply:

total combinations = C(main pool, main picks) × C(supp pool, supp picks)

That is the whole method. The derivation from first principles is in how lottery odds are actually calculated; what follows is that formula applied to every significant game we track.

Four worked examples

Chispazo (Mexico), 5 from 28 — the shortest odds of any national draw game we could verify:

C(28,5) = (28 × 27 × 26 × 25 × 24) / (5 × 4 × 3 × 2 × 1) = 11,793,600 / 120 = 98,280

Daily Lotto (South Africa), 5 from 36:

C(36,5) = (36 × 35 × 34 × 33 × 32) / 120 = 45,239,040 / 120 = 376,992

US Powerball, 5 from 69 plus 1 from 26 — two barrels, so multiply:

C(69,5) = 1,348,621,560 / 120 = 11,238,513 11,238,513 × 26 = 292,201,338

SuperEnalotto (Italy), 6 from 90 — the longest odds in mainstream play, with no second barrel needed:

C(90,6) = 448,282,533,600 / 720 = 622,614,630

Chispazo to SuperEnalotto is a factor of 6,335. Same product category, six thousand times the difficulty.

The ranking

Every figure below is C(n, k) for the game's current matrix. Where a game has a second pool the two counts are multiplied; where it has a bonus ball drawn from the main pool (UK Lotto, Irish Lotto) the bonus does not affect the jackpot, only the tier below it — see what a bonus ball actually does to your odds.

Each of those matrices is taken from the operator's own rules page — Powerball's prize chart, Mega Millions' how-to-play, the National Lottery's Lotto game procedures, The Lott's Powerball page, Caixa's Mega-Sena rules, Sisal's SuperEnalotto prize page and their equivalents. The odds are ours, computed from those matrices; the operators' published figures agree.

Three things the table does not say

Better odds do not mean better value. Chispazo's 1 in 98,280 buys a top prize measured in hundreds of thousands of pesos; Powerball's 1 in 292 million can buy a billion dollars. Ranking games by odds alone is like ranking cars by fuel tank size. The honest comparison — price divided by probability — is in cheapest cost per chance and our cost-per-chance tool.

Jackpot odds are not "win something" odds. Powerball's overall any-prize odds are 1 in 24.87 — 11.7 million times shorter than its jackpot odds — because eight of its nine tiers are small fixed cash. We rank games on that basis in the best odds of winning any prize.

A jackpot you share is a jackpot halved. Every figure above is the probability that your line is drawn. It says nothing about how many other people hold the same line — and in a big-sales draw, popular patterns get shared. That is how prize pools are split.

The two structural levers

Only two things make a game harder: a bigger pool and more picks. Compare Ireland's 6/47 with the UK's 6/59 — twelve extra balls, four times the difficulty (10,737,573 → 45,057,474). Compare Saturday Lotto's 6/45 with Oz Lotto's 7/47 — two extra balls in the barrel and one extra pick, and difficulty rises 7.7-fold.

Adding a second barrel is the cheapest way for an operator to lengthen odds without changing the "feel" of the game. Australia's Powerball asks for 7 numbers from only 35 — C(35,7) = 6,724,520, easier than Saturday Lotto — and then multiplies by a barrel of 20 to reach 134,490,400. Players see a smaller main pool and assume an easier game. The arithmetic says otherwise; you can run any matrix yourself in the odds calculator.