Eurojackpot — why the draw is at 20:00

Eurojackpot differs from Lotto in one fundamental way: it is not a Polish game. It is organised jointly by more than a dozen European state lotteries, and Totalizator Sportowy is one of the participants, not the host. That explains almost everything readers find strange — from the draw time, through the two-hour difference from Lotto, to the delay in publishing the prize amounts.

Where the Eurojackpot draw takes place

The draw is conducted in Helsinki, at the headquarters of the Finnish lottery Veikkaus, which acts as the game's technical operator. A single draw serves all participating countries — there are no separate national or regional draws. The result announced in Finland is, in the same second, the result that applies in Poland, Germany, Spain, and every other country taking part in the game.

Finland lies in the EET zone, one hour ahead of Polish time. The draw there starts at 21:00 local time, which falls at 20:00 in Poland. The difference is constant throughout the year, because both zones switch to summer and winter time at the same moment — so the Polish draw time doesn't change with the seasons.

Why 20:00 specifically, and not 21:40 like Lotto

The countries taking part in Eurojackpot span three time zones. Iceland operates on universal time, most of continental Europe on CET, and Finland, Estonia and Latvia on EET. Every hour chosen for the draw means a different time of day in each of these places — it's impossible to hit the evening simultaneously everywhere.

The table below shows how a single draw at a fixed hour plays out across several markets. The chosen hour is the solution under which, in no country, does it fall either too early in the afternoon or after midnight.

Country	Zone	Local time
Iceland	GMT	18:00
Spain, Germany, Poland	CET	20:00
Finland, Estonia, Latvia	EET	21:00

Local times for a single draw starting at 20:00 Polish time. The differences between the zones are constant throughout the year, since all the countries listed change their clocks on the same date.

Lotto follows a completely different logic. It is a national game, drawn in Warsaw exclusively for Polish players, so its hour can be matched to a Polish evening without regard for anyone else. Hence the later time — around 21:40 — and hence also the fact that on days when both games are drawn, their results are separated by less than two hours. You'll find a comparison of the two games' most recent draws in the Eurojackpot results.

On which days Eurojackpot is drawn

Draws take place twice a week: on Tuesdays and Fridays. Until 2022 the game had one draw a week, on Fridays; the Tuesday draw was added later, nearly doubling the number of draws per year. Both times are identical — 20:00 Polish time.

Ticket sales close before the draw, and the exact closing moment is set by each country separately in its own regulations. In Poland the cutoff falls in the early evening of the draw day — a ticket bought after that hour takes part only in the next draw, even if it's paid for just minutes before eight o'clock.

Why prize amounts appear later than the numbers

The numbers themselves are the draw result and depend on nothing but the course of the draw itself — they're known within a few minutes. The amounts assigned to prize tiers are an entirely different category of data: they arise only after sales from all participating countries have been summed and the number of winning tickets in each tier has been established.

In Eurojackpot, the prize pool is divided by percentage among twelve tiers, and the size of each depends on total sales and the number of winning tickets. Until more than a dozen national lotteries have sent in their data and it has been reconciled, no amount can be given — only the numbers can. That's why sites publishing results show the numbers first, and fill in the prize table a few hours later, most often the same evening or overnight.

In Lotto the process is shorter, because the data comes from a single country and a single sales system. That's another practical difference between a national and an international game — and the most common reason a reader refreshes the Eurojackpot page at 20:15 and sees numbers without amounts.

What happens to the jackpot between draws

If nobody hits the first tier in a draw, the pool allocated to it carries over to the next draw. With two draws a week, this means the jackpot can grow faster than with just one — but also that it's broken more often. You can check the current amount ahead of the next draw in the Eurojackpot jackpot overview.

It's worth remembering that the jackpot doesn't change the probability of winning — it only changes the size of the prize. The number of possible combinations is fixed and doesn't depend on how many times in a row nobody has won. You can review the history of individual numbers appearing in the Eurojackpot statistics, but they describe the past and say nothing about the next draw.

Most common questions about the draw time

Does the hour change in summer? No. Poland and Finland switch to summer time on the same date, so the difference between the zones stays constant, and the draw in Poland is always at 20:00.

Does Poland have its own Eurojackpot draw? No. There is one draw for all participating countries, conducted in Helsinki. Polish tickets take part in exactly the same draw as German or Spanish ones.

Why are Friday's Eurojackpot results out before Lotto's? Because these are two independent games with independent schedules. Eurojackpot is drawn at 20:00 under international arrangements, Lotto around 21:40 under a national schedule. The overlap of days is coincidental and doesn't imply any link between the games. You'll find the current results of both on the site's homepage.