Ireland’s €289 Million Problem with Secondary Betting on the Lottery

Of all the online and landbased gambling products, lotteries are by far the most popular. They aren’t really tied to age demographics or income brackets, lotteries are a mainstream and widely legal form of gambling that is perhaps the most socially accepted. How do you play? You buy a ticket, punch in your numbers (or get them automatically generated), and then you wait for the next draw. Or at least, that is how they should run.

In Ireland, the National Lottery revealed that around €289 million that would have potentially gone on the lottery, was actually spent at bookies offering bets on the lottery. For instance, placing a bet on matching 3 numbers from the lottery draw, and getting paid fixed prizes for correct predictions. The controversy here is that the bookmakers are actually taking revenue from the lottery, and creating a parallel lottery product. One that is not entirely legal, and is now coming under heavy fire in Ireland.

Bookmakers Offering Bets on the National Lottery

It is a strange scenario, and one that poses serious threats to the National Lottery in Ireland. Premier Lotteries Ireland, the operator that runs the National Lottery in the country, stated that around €289 million had been lost to bookmakers in 2024 alone. Of which approximately €81 millionwould have gone to public welfare programs. The press statement pointed out that the practise of secondary markets on lotteries is banned in 25 of the 27 EU states, and that it:

• Led to an estimated 1,929 lost jobs
• Reduced output across the Retail and Good Causes sector by €125.7 million
• Results in €12.7 million loss in Exchequer revenue
• Reduced the value of the National Lottery licence by between €118 million and €250 million

Lotteries like the one in Ireland or the UK are often closely tied to state agencies and have a larger social responsibility than online casinos or bookmakers. Instead of just paying duties, proceeds often go to charities, public programs, health and welfare schemes, and other similar initiatives.

The report began with a stark reminder.

The National Lottery has supported over €15 billion in economic output since 2018 and has contributed to over 18,000 jobs in 2024. If such an institution were to be undermined, it could damage the country’s entire economy.

How the Lottery Betting Works

35% of the people using these secondary lottery betting markets said that if these markets didn’t exist, they would play the lottery instead. There is an element of confusion about how this works too, with some players not realising that they are jeopardising the quality of the lottery. Because when you play the lottery, you are

• Spending money at the National Lottery
• A portion of this goes into the lottery pool itself
• Profits from the remaining portion uphold the NL and go to affiliated charitable causes

At a bookie offering bets on the lottery, you spend money at the bookmaker, with no proceeds going to the affiliated public programs or the lottery pool itself. No, the lottery products at the bookmakers – often categorised as Novelty Bets – are just the same as if you were to bet on a horse race, or a sports match.

Lottery Betting Markets

The lottery betting markets are fixed odds wagers. You place bets on what numbers will be drawn, matching numbers or combinations, and getting paid out if your bet wins. Furthermore, some of the bookies even offered accumulator opportunities, combining multiple lottery draws for bigger payouts. Real examples of these betting markets include:

• Match 1 number: Odds range around 6/1
• Match 2 numbers: Odds range around 10/1
• Match 3 numbers: odds range around 700/1

Of course, it depends on the lottery format and how many numbers are drawn. Bookies could also combine the results of Irish Lotto and EuroMillions into one bet slip, creating longer odds accas. It wasn’t offshore, unregulated bookmakers offering these bets either – which makes it all the more controversial. Well known brands like BetFred, Paddy Power, BoyleSports, LadBrokes, and Coral offered these bets, as well as betting exchanges like BetFair.

Why This Has Become a Thing

From a player’s perspective, the psychology here is entirely different from traditional lotteries. The odds aren’t stacked against you like when you pay €1 in the Daily Million, €2,50 in EuroMillions, or €4 in the Irish Lotto. Your chances of winning are next to nothing, but the payouts are life changing to say the least. Sure, there are auxiliary prizes in most lotteries, like if you score 3, 4 or 5 numbers from a possible 6, but these prizes are not as spectacular, and the odds are still very long.

Bookmakers have capitalized on the opposite end of the draws. You aren’t playing for the life changing returns, but instead taking chances betting on landing just 1, 2 or 3 numbers. The odds are better, the payouts are a lot less, but you don’t pay fixed prices to buy tickets. No, you can stake as much money as you like on your 2 number combination, or 5 number EuroMillions + Irish Lotto bet.

This flexibility and the more easily comprehensible odds have great appeal amongst lottery players. On paper, you are still taking chances, albeit ones with less risk but less payout too. But the mentality is different. It can give some players a greater sense of control. Because you decide how risky you want to go, and you effectively set the ticket price, instead of sticking to just €1 to €4 fixed prices.

Combine that with unhealthy lucky numbers superstitions, or biases like the hot hand fallacy where you look for patterns to try to predict future outcomes, and lottery betting products have an entirely different risk factor. They could be a lot more addictive and unhealthy for anyone new to sports betting. Especially those customers who have only played lottery and have never made the crossover into conventional betting before.

Threats to Lottery Runners

The lottery runners are up in arms about all of this because it directly impacts their revenue and their standing with their customers. And they do have a point. The bookmakers like BetFred and co. are not actually running the lottery, marketing the lottery, nor are they asking for permissions here. They are using the lottery, as a well established and popular gambling provider, and simply taking bets from players on what will happen. They can market these bets pretty easily because the lottery is a mainstream, popular activity, and this way, bookmakers can also win over traditional lottery-only customers.

That National Lottery announcement did state that 25 of the 27 EU states have outlawed this practice, Ireland being one of the 2 countries that has not. The other? The UK.

Lottery betting existed in the UK in the 2010s to early 2020s, with operators like Lottoland offering bets on the EuroMillions and UK Lotto results. The same thing happened, where confusion was created among players, the lottery revenue and reputation were damaged, and charitable causes lost out on the revenue that streamed into the bookies. That is when the UKGC stepped up and banned betting on the EuroMillions. Though in the UK, these lottery betting style products are still allowed, with major limits, the hype there died down after the EuroMillions betting was ruled out.

Ireland, on the other hand, has not yet addressed this problem.

Officials Considering Banning Lotto Betting

That is, until now. The Irish Gambling Regulatory Authority is in the process of building a modern licensing framework for gambling. The Gambling Regulation Act of 2024 established the founding of the new regulatory body, and formal operations for issuing licences to retail bookmakers and online betting began in 2026. This is the first time that Ireland has had a single regulator for the entire gambling sector, and right now the market is in the launch phase.

So a lot of the minor details and conditions are still being ironed out, tested, and fixed as the regulator oversees these crucial first years. Ireland is tightening its gambling sector, with stricter rules on advertising, player protection and social responsibility. Scandals like this one are bound to pop up. Especially in the overlaps between different industries like bingo, lottery, sports betting, casino gaming, and so on.

There is no indication right now that the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland will ban these secondary lottery products. They are available right now through a legal loophole. But it has the power to ban specific betting products, and given what happened in the UK, the natural step forward would be to act quickly and shut these down. Or, at the very least, constrain them to such a degree that they stop harming the National Lottery. A controversial territory, it is all about drawing the line where betting ends, and steps into other gambling products, a bit like prediction markets in the US, or sweepstakes casinos overstepping the line with online casinos.