How to play Glücksspirale
GlücksSpirale is a ticket lottery whose winning numbers in Germany are drawn every Saturday after the Lotto drawing. Glücksspirale has 7 prize tiers, with tier 1 being the lowest. A completely matching seven-digit ticket number yields a top prize of €10,000 per month.
Unlike Spiel 77 or Super 6, not a single number is drawn, but a separate number for each prize tier. For tiers
1 to 5, one winning number is drawn each, while for the top prizes in tiers 6 and 7, two winning numbers are drawn for each tier.
Because the winning numbers (ticket numbers) are predefined, this lottery is less suitable for system play. With the right numbers you can win a monthly instant annuity of €10,000 (term: 20 years) as the top prize. Withheld stakes from this lottery support a broad system
of funding for sports, environmental causes, and cultural heritage.
Costs, stake or “Glücksspirale costs” / “annuity lottery costs”
The stake for each Glücksspirale ticket is €5.00 plus processing fees charged by state lottery companies or private state-licensed brokers. In some federal states, ticket shares are offered at €2.50 for a “half ticket” and €1.00 for a “fifth ticket”.
What’s special about this lottery?
This annuity lottery offers the highest lifetime annuity prizes in Germany.
Why is it said that this lottery does good?
Because part of the stakes is not paid out as prizes but flows as a surplus into heritage conservation, welfare, and especially sports. Since the first draw, over
€1.9 billion has been made available for charitable purposes.
Sales cutoff – “until when can you play Glücksspirale?”
The cutoff varies nationwide and between different online retailers; it is around 18:30 on Saturdays. The public drawing
takes place once weekly, every Saturday at 19:15 at the State Lottery Administration in Munich. All winning numbers are announced on Saturdays at 19:57
directly before the Tagesschau on ARD, as well as on the internet, teletext, and in customer magazines of the German Lotto and Totoblock. Please note that this annuity lottery
is an independent lottery, so processing fees are charged separately. This is also one reason why only a few state-licensed retailers
(see our objective Glücksspirale price comparison further down) offer this lottery at all.
Ticket durations – “how often the processing fee is charged”
Online you can choose durations between 1 and 8 weeks,
or set a debit interval for a subscription ticket. Some state lottery companies (LLGs) also offer significantly longer durations (e.g., annual ticket for Glücksspirale). However, some LLGs (e.g., Lotto NRW) have recently removed annual tickets from their range.
Prize tiers – “how high are the prizes in Glücksspirale?”
In each of the seven tiers, a separate winning number is drawn; therefore the overall win probability in Glücksspirale is higher than, for example, in Spiel 77 and Super 6 (about 10.99909% compared to 10% in Spiel 77).
There are different winning numbers and thus multiple chances
for each ticket. Tickets win when one or more
ending digits match the drawn number in the correct order.
If a player wins in a higher tier,
a win in the lower tier is automatically excluded. Prize amounts follow
a fixed payout plan. This applies to tiers 6 and
7 only with restrictions (two winning numbers are drawn in each of these tiers).