How to Play BonoLoto from Ireland: An Irish Player's Guide

Yes. BonoLoto is run by Loterías y Apuestas del Estado (SELAE), the Spanish state lottery, which pays the holder of a winning ticket and sets no nationality or residency condition on winning or claiming.

Ireland has no outlet that sells the game, so Irish players use a lottery courier. The courier buys the line in Spain on your instruction, scans the ticket into your account and keeps the original safe, and the entry you hold is the same as one bought over the counter in Madrid. Everything that differs for a player in Ireland sits around the ticket: the law, the clock, the payment and the tax.

The game itself is covered on the BonoLoto hub; this page is about playing it from Ireland.

We cannot give you a clean yes from a primary source. Irish lottery law is written around who may promote and sell lotteries in the State: section 21 of the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956, as enacted, says no person shall promote or assist in promoting a lottery, or sell or offer for sale a lottery ticket. It is aimed at promoters and sellers, not at a person who holds a ticket, and a courier buys the BonoLoto ticket in Spain from SELAE's retail network, not in Ireland.

We did not find a source that settles how Irish law treats an Irish resident ordering a Spanish ticket through a courier, so we do not claim it is risk-free. Irish gambling regulation has been changing, so check the current position on the regulator's own site, and use only an operator that shows a licence you can verify. This is not legal advice.

BonoLoto uses the same 6-from-49 grid as La Primitiva but sells it for less and draws it more often. Its first draw was held on 28 February 1988, with the stated aim of frequent draws at affordable prices.

• **Price.** One bet is €0.50; the smallest ticket is €1, which means two bets for one draw or one bet for two draws.
• **Frequency.** A draw every night of the week at 21:30 Spanish time.
• **Complementario.** An extra ball taken from the 43 numbers left. It lifts a five-number match into the second prize tier and has no effect on the jackpot.
• **Reintegro.** A digit from 0 to 9 assigned to your ticket when you buy it. Match it and the stake comes back.
• **Jackpot.** The record is €10,614,853.61, won on 17 January 2024.

So BonoLoto is a volume-and-price game: small stakes, a draw every night and jackpots well below the big Spanish and European headlines.

The draw is at 21:30 in Madrid. Spain is on Central European Time and Ireland is on Greenwich Mean Time in winter and Irish Standard Time in summer, and both countries change their clocks on the same dates, so Spain is one hour ahead of Ireland all year.

That puts the draw at **20:30 Irish time**, every night including Sundays. It is an ordinary evening slot, so an Irish player can watch the result the same night. Entry closes before the draw, so a ticket bought late in the evening goes into the next night's draw. Read the cut-off at checkout instead of assuming it matches the draw time, and confirm the draw time with your operator, because SELAE sets it and can change it.

• Pick a licensed courier that serves Ireland and actually carries BonoLoto. Not every operator offers every Spanish game.
• Open an account and verify your identity. Expect a photo ID and a proof of address.
• Choose six numbers from 1 to 49, or take a quick pick. The Reintegro is assigned to your ticket and the Complementario is drawn by chance.
• Pay in euros. BonoLoto is a euro game and so is an Irish card or euro account, so there is no currency conversion on the way in or on a prize coming back.
• Make sure the scan of your ticket appears in your account before entry closes. It is your proof of entry.
• After the draw the operator checks your line and credits any prize, including a Reintegro refund.

The face price is €0.50 a bet and €1 for the smallest ticket. A week of seven single-bet draws is €3.50 and a year of a daily €0.50 bet is €182.50, all before the courier's service fee.

Because both the game and an Irish account run in euros, the only cost on top of the face price is the fee itself, not an exchange spread. Fees vary by operator and by how many lines you buy, so compare the total per line at checkout rather than the headline €0.50. Your card issuer may still add its own charge on a foreign purchase, so ask your bank what applies.

Start with Spain, where the prize is paid. Its special levy on lottery prizes exempts the first €40,000 and withholds 20% on the part above it, applied by SELAE at payment. Almost every BonoLoto prize, the fixed €4 tier, the Reintegro refund and everything up to the middle categories, sits far under that line and arrives whole. A large jackpot is taxed only on the excess: a €400,000 win is taxed on €360,000, so €72,000 is withheld. The Spanish tax agency states that the withholding applies even where a double tax treaty would exempt the prize, so it is deducted first and reclaimed afterwards if at all.

Then Ireland. Section 613(2) of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 says winnings from betting, lotteries, sweepstakes or games with prizes are not chargeable gains, so there is no capital gains tax on the prize. The Spanish tax agency adds that where a treaty gives the taxing right to the country of residence, which it says is the case in most instances, a non-resident can apply for a refund of the Spanish tax withheld, using Modelo 210. Whether that route is open to you on a large prize is a question for a Spanish adviser, not something to assume.

If you share a prize with family, gift and inheritance tax rules may apply to the transfers; Revenue's gifts and inheritance pages are the place to start. None of this is tax advice, and rules change.

Lower-tier wins are credited to your courier account and withdrawn to your Irish bank account in euros.

A top-tier prize is paid by SELAE in Spain, not by the courier. The operator transfers the official ticket into your name and handles the claim on your instruction, which can mean identity documents, Spanish tax paperwork and, for the largest sums, collecting in person. Ask any operator how it handles that before you play, since the answer varies more than players expect.

Two practical points for Ireland. Irish citizens can travel to Spain without a visa as EU citizens, so an in-person claim is a flight, not an application. And because the prize is paid in euros, the money reaches an Irish account without a conversion step.

Six matching numbers win the jackpot at 1 in 13,983,816. Below it, per ticket line:

• 5 plus the Complementario: 1 in 2,330,636
• 5 numbers: 1 in 55,491
• 4 numbers: 1 in 1,032
• 3 numbers: about 1 in 57, for a fixed €4
• Reintegro alone: 1 in 10, which refunds the €0.50

Our BonoLoto odds and prizes guide sets out the full table.

The Irish Lotto's 6-from-47 jackpot is 1 in 10,737,573, so BonoLoto's jackpot is harder to hit, by about 30%. It is a different bet, not a better one: a lower ceiling, a draw every night and a Reintegro that returns the stake one time in ten. No method of choosing numbers shifts either set of odds.

SELAE sells three number games side by side, and a courier can reach all of them from Ireland.

**BonoLoto** is the cheap daily game: €0.50 a bet, 6 from 49, no separate top category.

**La Primitiva** is the flagship: €1 a line and three draws a week. Our La Primitiva guide for Ireland covers it.

**El Gordo de la Primitiva** is the weekly game on a different matrix. Our El Gordo guide for Ireland covers it, and it should not be confused with the Christmas raffle that shares part of its name.

The next draw is on our next BonoLoto draw page and recent numbers on the results page. The Irish tax and legal position described above is the same for all three, because the same operator pays them under the same Spanish rules.

A genuine operator never charges a fee to release a prize, you cannot win a draw you did not enter, and a licence should be checked on the regulator's own register, not taken from a badge. A message saying you won a lottery you never entered is a scam, however official the letterhead looks.

We would rather you played less than played badly, and a draw every night is the easiest kind to leave running unattended. If it stops feeling like entertainment, Problem Gambling Ireland can help, and our responsible-play page lists limits worth setting.