The National Lottery's EuroMillions tickets can be bought online, but should you take the risk?

A number of lotteries around the world will allow players to buy their tickets online. And it seems like a good idea. But first, the bad news:

The lottery website might be down when you most need it - like the problem that crashed both the UK National Lotto and EuroMillions orders for several hours.

In a statement posted on Twitter in October 2017, the UK National Lottery said: "We're very sorry that many players are currently unable to access The National Lottery website or app. Our 46,000 retailers are unaffected."

It also happened the month before. So if you were relying on playing close to the game's deadlines and found the website down, it could be an opportunity lost.

Also, if an online site goes down, you may lose your saved numbers. The once-only fill advantage of the Silver Lotto System is lost when you have to fill out your tickets again.

Or the lottery could charge you more than you expect. This lottery charged Peggy (pictured above) a cash withdrawal fee when she paid for her tickets online.

Or you might have the winning numbers when you order, but - as Edwina Nylan below found out to her horror - if your card was declined and you didn't know, it's all over.

Now the good news: Online ordering is easy and convenient.

You can get a list of all the games that offer online purchasing in the Silver Lotto System LottoPredict chart. See them in the "Play Online" column.

And if you can't play a lottery because you're out of the country, there are a number of third-party services which will buy tickets for you. One of the biggest is thelotter.com.

But just bear in mind that not everything goes smoothly in the digital world.

I recommend you stick to your paper-based tickets.