Us Brits love a good old-fashioned bet on the lottery. Our National Lottery draws are a nationwide phenomenon, keeping the fingers of the UK well and truly crossed twice every week. Every Wednesday and Saturday night, we sit and wait in our millions, hoping that tonight, it could be us…

Of course, it very rarely is. In fact, the odds of winning any prize whatsoever – most likely the smallest possible – through a single play on the UK National Lottery are 54 to 1. Play one line every week and you’d be lucky to win the minimum prize once over the course of a year. So why is it that we keep on playing when the odds are stacked so unfavourably against us?

We suspect that many lottery-playing Brits are simply unaware that there are better options out there; other lotteries which are actually likely to yield wins for regular players once every now and then!

The Irish Lotto, Ireland’s biggest national lottery game is just such a lottery. The Irish Lotto challenges players to pick 6 from 45 numbers (as opposed to 49), and even if you only manage to match one number, you still win a prize (£6.50 on a £1 bet). The impact this has on the odds of winning a prize is profound – Irish Lotto players can regularly pick up their number pickers and ink in their choices knowing that they’re in with a realistic chance of a cash prize. It’s all the excitement of our UK National Lottery, but with the added bonus of realistic odds to play against!

But hang on a minute… what’s the catch?

With prizes so readily available through the Irish Lotto and ticket prices lower than the UK National Lottery, surely something’s gotta give? Irish Lotto jackpots are notably lower than UK lottery jackpots, but let’s think about this like people who actually want to win something for a change…

The Irish Lotto jackpot pool for every play is pegged at €2million. That’s not record-breaking money by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s still mind-bogglingly life-changing money! Let’s leave our plucky British underdog hats at the door and play like shrewd winners from now on… try your luck here: www.coral.co.uk/lotto/offers/irishlotto

By choosing to play the Irish Lotto, you put yourself in with a great chance of a nice little win, and a far better chance of becoming a millionaire than you’ll ever have playing the National Lottery. May the luck of the Irish be with you!