{"id":552713,"date":"2026-07-16T13:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/552713\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T13:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:10:09","slug":"lottery-drops-balls-in-first-update-for-eight-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/552713\/","title":{"rendered":"Lottery drops balls in first update for eight years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two numbers are being dropped by the National Lottery as part of changes to the Lotto and Lotto Plus games.<\/p>\n<p>The game updates, the first for Lotto in eight years, will come into effect this autumn.<\/p>\n<p>The National Lottery said the number of balls will be reduced from 47 to 45 in each Lotto draw.<\/p>\n<p>This means that the odds of winning the jackpot or top prize will improve from 1 in 10.7 million to 1 in 8.1 million.<\/p>\n<p>The Lotto Plus 2 top prize will also increase from \u20ac250,000 to \u20ac1m, while the Lotto Plus 1 top prize will remain at \u20ac1m.<\/p>\n<p>A new Lotto draw is also being added meaning there will be draws on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday from later this year.<\/p>\n<p>The date for the introduction of these game changes will be confirmed in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These changes mark an exciting new chapter for our flagship game &#8211; Lotto. We&#8217;ve been listening to our players, and these enhancements have been designed with our players front of mind and with the goal of creating the best possible game experience,&#8221; National Lottery CEO Cian Murphy said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;By removing two balls, the odds of winning have improved across Lotto and the Plus games, while the enhanced Lotto Plus 2 prize and an additional draw night will give players even more chances to win,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>There are no changes to prices to play either Lotto or the Lotto Plus games.<\/p>\n<p>Consistent with the current rules, the minimum purchase will remain two lines at a cost of \u20ac4.<\/p>\n<p>It will also continue to cost \u20ac6 to play two lines of Lotto with Lotto Plus, which includes both the Lotto Plus One and Lotto Plus Two draws.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two numbers are being dropped by the National Lottery as part of changes to the Lotto and Lotto&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":["post-552713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}