Lotto wheel calculator

A wheel changes how many lines are bought, never the odds of one line: every line costs the full price and carries the same chance as any other. What it changes is how drawn numbers spread, because when several of them are among the chosen ones they turn up together on many lines at once.

A full wheel's size is a binomial coefficient, the count of ways to pick 6 numbers out of the pool: written C(8,6) for eight numbers, it equals 28. Nine numbers make 84 lines and ten make 210. The UK has no system entry: the Gambling Commission's game licences provide only single lines, so a wheel means buying each line separately. A wheel organises lines rather than improving them, and the page gives no betting advice, as the disclaimer sets out.

Games with a second drum multiply two counts. A EuroMillions wheel of six main numbers and three Lucky Stars holds 0 times 3, or 18 combinations, at £45 a draw. Thunderball, Set For Life and Powerball draw one extra ball, so each extra number chosen adds a full copy of the main lines.

The total cost of a wheel is its lines times the price per line, times the draws played. The price per line differs by game, as the Gambling Commission's licences set it:

• Lotto £2, drawn on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
• Thunderball £1, drawn four times a week.
• EuroMillions £2.50, which includes the compulsory UK Millionaire Maker raffle.
• Set For Life £1.50, drawn on Mondays and Thursdays.
• Powerball £4, on sale since 21 July 2026.

A Lotto play slip takes 7 lines, and an online purchase up to 70 at a time, with no cap on how many are bought. A Lucky Dip, where the terminal picks the numbers at random, cannot build a wheel, because a wheel needs one fixed set of numbers. Played over 8 draws, about four weeks of Lotto, the eight number wheel costs £448.

Each £2 Lotto line has played two rounds per draw since the draw of 10 June 2026, and it can win in both (Allwyn, 2026). Each round has its own 6 main numbers and its own bonus ball, all from 1 to 59.

The fixed prizes apply in each round (Lotto licence, 7 June 2026). Match 5 plus the bonus pays £1,000,000 and match 5 £1,000; match 4 pays £50, match 3 £10 and match 2 £1. Match 2 used to give a free Lucky Dip. The jackpot for all six is pari-mutuel: a share of a prize pool that depends on sales and winners.

The calculator takes the matches of one round, so its winning lines and fixed prizes read per round. A night where both rounds hit the wheel is two calculations added together. The odds, by contrast, count both rounds. One line has a 1 in 22,528,738 chance of the jackpot per draw, twice its chance of 1 in 45,057,474 in a single round.

A prize tier is one level of matches with its own prize, such as match 3. With four of eight Lotto numbers drawn, the 28 lines split into 6 that match 4, 16 that match 3 and 6 that match 2. Those fixed prizes add up to £466 for the round, against £56 for the lines.

Each line falls into one tier only, since the tiers are defined by exact matches: match 5 means five numbers without the bonus. A wheel of seven numbers holding five drawn numbers and the bonus ball has 1 line matching 5 plus the bonus, 1 matching 5 and 5 matching 4. That makes £1,001,250 in fixed prizes.

Every Thunderball tier pays a fixed prize, from £3 for the Thunderball alone up to £500,000 for match 5 plus the Thunderball (Thunderball licence). Seven numbers with two Thunderballs make 42 lines for £42. With three numbers and one Thunderball drawn, 27 of them win, for £315 in total.

Set For Life pays its two top tiers as monthly income (Set For Life licence). Match 5 plus the Life Ball pays £10,000 a month for 30 years, and match 5 pays £10,000 a month for 1 year. Six numbers and one Life Ball holding five drawn numbers and the Life Ball give 1 top prize and 5 lines matching 4 plus the Life Ball. The calculator counts monthly and pari-mutuel tiers but adds only fixed amounts to the total. The reference cases rerun these sums against the licences.

Only by buying more lines, and each line keeps exactly the same odds, so the chance per pound spent stays the same. One Lotto line at £2 has a 1 in 22,528,738 chance of the jackpot per draw. A wheeling system of eight numbers raises that to 1 in 804,598, for 28 times the money.

Odds of 1 in x mean a probability of one divided by x. The licences compute them as all possible combinations divided by the winning ones and round up, with one decimal for small odds, as the Gambling Commission's licences specify. A Lotto line matches 3 once in 48.4 draws on average and wins some prize once in 4.9.

The EuroMillions jackpot needs five numbers and both Lucky Stars, which is why its odds are the longest after Powerball. Each draw is independent of the last, so no number is due and no line is likelier than another. The methodology page explains how figures like these are checked.

The check mode counts the matches itself from the numbers typed in. It takes the main numbers of the wheel, from 5 to 15 (6 for Lotto at least), and the main numbers drawn.

For Lotto it also takes the bonus ball. For the other games it asks for the extra numbers chosen and drawn: the Thunderball number, the Lucky Stars, the Life Ball or the Powerball. The result then lists the winning lines tier by tier, as in the matches mode.

A typed draw is only as reliable as the typing. The official result and any claim go through the National Lottery itself, and a ticket is checked there, not here.

Lottery winnings in the UK are tax-free, because a prize is not a chargeable gain (Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992, s51). Interest earned on the money afterwards is taxable as savings income, which the savings interest calculator works out.

The Gambling Commission regulates the National Lottery and licenses each game. Allwyn has run it since 1 February 2024. Players must be at least 18, the minimum age for every game since October 2021.

A prize must be claimed within 180 days of the draw, a period the game licences restate.

An abbreviated wheel is a smaller selection of lines that guarantees a lower prize if enough chosen numbers are drawn. This calculator handles full wheels only, so it neither builds nor checks abbreviated ones.

• A key number, kept in every line of a wheel, is not an option here.
• Lotto HotPicks pays fixed odds on one to five picked numbers and is not a wheel game.
• The UK Millionaire Maker raffle code that comes with each EuroMillions line is not counted.
• A Must Be Won draw, when an unwon Lotto jackpot rolls down to the lower tiers, is not priced.
• Standard prizes can be capped when a draw has unusually many winners; the calculator uses the standard amounts.
• Pari-mutuel prizes are counted but never priced, since they are known only after the draw.