EuroMillions draws have continued to take place every Tuesday and Friday as normal throughout the coronavirus pandemic, despite strict measures being in place across Europe to try and keep people from coming into close contact with each other.
There have been millions of entries submitted into each draw, with fans of the game encouraged to take part online if possible and only buy tickets from retailers as part of their essential shop.
The one exception has been Spain, which suspended ticket sales for EuroMillions and other games back in March.
Other countries updated their rules regarding advance play, highlighting that it was uncertain whether draws would be able to carry on as scheduled if the crisis became any worse.
All the lottery operators in the nine participating countries work together to run EuroMillions, but draws take place in Paris so it has been particularly important to monitor the situation in France.
As draws have been able to continue and France is now set to ease restrictions, it looks increasingly certain that EuroMillions will not have to suspend operations.
The Irish National Lottery has therefore announced that players will once again be able to play in advance for one, two, four, six or eight draws. For the past few weeks, since 11th April, it has only been possible to enter a single draw at a time.
In the UK, players have only been allowed to enter one week’s worth of draws in advance. There has been no announcement yet about a lifting of this limit, but it is expected to happen in the near future.
In Spain, it was announced when the suspension was imposed that lotteries would resume after the state of alarm was over. Currently, this is slated to happen on 24th May.
Various other lotteries around the world have also been affected by coronavirus, with Powerball and Mega Millions in the USA having to lower their starting jackpots to account for a decline in ticket sales. Italy’s SuperEnalotto was also suspended for more than a month, but has now restarted.
