Who Is SLE? The Brussels Company Behind EuroMillions
The small print on EuroMillions pages names a Belgian company, SLE. Here's who owns it, what it does, and how it differs from the lottery operators and regulators.
Scroll to the bottom of almost any EuroMillions page, and you'll find a line saying that "EuroMillions" is a registered trade mark of S.L.E. Services aux Loteries en Europe. Most people never find out who that is. It is a company that plays a quiet but central role in how a game spread across nine countries holds together.
What SLE is
Services aux Loteries en Europe, usually shortened to SLE, is a company set up under Belgian law, with its registered office in Oudergem (Auderghem), in the Brussels region. According to its own legal notice, it provides services to its shareholder lottery operators, which offer EuroMillions in the territories they are authorised to operate in. It also runs the official EuroMillions website at euromillions.eu.
Who owns it
SLE isn't owned by a private investor. Its shareholders are the lottery operators that run EuroMillions, and the legal notice names several of them, including Belgium's Nationale Loterij, Portugal's Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, Austria's Österreichische Lotterien, and Switzerland's Loterie de la Suisse Romande and Swisslos. France's Française des Jeux and Spain's Loterías y Apuestas del Estado are also shareholders: published company information puts them at about 26.6% and 30.5% respectively.
What SLE does
According to Française des Jeux, SLE carries out the shared operations for EuroMillions, the activities that only make sense to run once for the whole game rather than separately in each country. It also holds the EuroMillions trade mark. The UK registration was filed in December 2002, more than a year before the first draw in February 2004, and national operators are authorised to use the name in their own markets.
What SLE doesn't do
SLE doesn't sell tickets to UK players, and it isn't the UK's regulator. Those roles sit elsewhere:
- Selling tickets and paying prizes: each country's licensed operator handles this in its own market. In the UK, EuroMillions is run under the National Lottery licence, held by Allwyn since February 2024.
- Regulation: in the UK, the Gambling Commission regulates the National Lottery and the operator.
Where the UK fits
The UK is one of the nine countries taking part, and the UK operator is part of the group of lotteries that collaborate on the game. UK players deal with the National Lottery operator, not with SLE.
Why it matters
Knowing who is behind a name helps in telling official sources from unofficial ones. This website, like many others, is an independent information site: it isn't run by SLE, by Allwyn or by any national lottery operator, and its footer says so. For rules and official information, the operators' own sites, and euromillions.eu, are the reference. It's also a good reason to treat messages claiming to come from "the EuroMillions company" with caution. Our guide to safe play and scams covers that in more detail.
In summary
SLE is a Belgian company owned by the lotteries that run EuroMillions. It provides shared services to them and holds the trade mark, but it doesn't sell tickets or regulate the game in the UK.