Record Lottery Wins Around the World and in Poland — Amounts Compared

The largest jackpot in lottery history is 2.04 billion USD, paid out in the American Powerball in November 2022 on a single ticket. In Europe, the highest amount was reached by EuroMillions — 240 million EUR, the maximum allowed under that game's rules. Poland's record belongs to Eurojackpot: around 193 million PLN, won in May 2019 by a player from the Piotrków Trybunalski area. In Lotto itself, the highest win amounted to 36 million PLN.

The difference between these amounts is not a matter of operator generosity. It is determined by two numbers: how many tickets were sold and how hard it is to hit the top prize. Below we break this down factor by factor and compare the records in tables.

Why US jackpots are so high

Powerball and Mega Millions have the lowest odds of hitting the first tier among the world's major lotteries — around one in three hundred million. With such odds, the jackpot rolls over through many consecutive draws, and a market of several hundred million potential players adds tens of millions of dollars to the pool every week. That's arithmetic, not the rulebook.

The second factor concerns how the amounts are announced. Sums reported in American media are usually the value of an annuity spread over 29 years, not money paid out on the spot. A winner choosing the lump-sum payout receives roughly half of the headline sum, from which federal and state tax is still deducted. So the headline refers to something different from the actual transfer.

In Poland the matter is simpler. The amount stated in the Totalizator Sportowy announcement is the gross amount, and tax is withheld by the operator before payout. You can calculate exactly how much remains in hand using the prize tax calculator.

The highest jackpots in American lotteries

Amounts given as the annuity value spread over three decades. The lump-sum payout is usually roughly half as much, and after federal and state tax the winner keeps even less.

European records: EuroMillions, Eurojackpot, SuperEnalotto

Europe doesn't have a single lottery market, but it does have two transnational games. EuroMillions connects nine countries, including France, Spain and the United Kingdom — and it accounts for the highest European wins. Eurojackpot covers eighteen countries, Poland among them, and its top jackpot is capped by the rules at 120 million EUR.

Italy's SuperEnalotto deserves a separate mention. The record jackpot of 371 million EUR from February 2023 was split among ninety tickets belonging to a single syndicate. Each participant received about 4.1 million EUR — a good illustration that a high jackpot and a high individual win are two different things.

What is Poland's record?

The highest amount ever paid out in Poland in a number game is around 193 million PLN in Eurojackpot. It was won in May 2019 by a player from the Piotrków Trybunalski area, sharing the jackpot with a player from Germany. Lotto's own record is noticeably lower: 36 million PLN won in March 2017 in Skarżysko-Kamienna.

The reason for this difference is visible in the odds column. The chance of hitting six numbers in Lotto is 1 in 13,983,816 — roughly twenty times better than in the American Powerball and ten times better than in Eurojackpot. So the Lotto jackpot breaks earlier, before it can grow to European proportions. Current jackpot levels for all six games can be found on the Lotto jackpots page.

Gross amounts, before tax deduction. Odds calculated for a single basic bet.

Tax on winnings in Poland

Since 1 January 2026, the flat-rate tax on winnings in number games is 15%. The tax-free threshold remains unchanged: winnings up to 2280 PLN are tax-free. Above this amount, tax is calculated on the entire winning, not just the surplus over the threshold.

The tax is withheld by the operator, so the player receives the net amount and does not report it in their annual tax return. For the 2017 record — 36 million PLN gross — at today's rate, the player would keep 30.6 million PLN. Large winnings are paid out at Totalizator Sportowy branches; we've gathered their list on the where to collect your prize page.

What these records don't tell you

Both tables show the same pattern: record jackpots occur where the odds of winning are lowest. A high jackpot is the result of a game's difficulty, not a benefit to the player. A Powerball ticket at a 2 billion USD jackpot has exactly the same probability as a ticket at a 40 million jackpot — only the amount to be won changes, not the odds.

There is also no connection between how often a number has appeared in the past and its chance in the next draw. Every draw is an independent event, and the balls don't remember previous results. The historical data we publish in our Lotto statistics describe what has already happened — and only that.