We discuss how different cosmological models of the Universe affect the probability that a background source has multiple images related by an angular distance, i.e., the optical depth of gravitational lensing. We examine some cosmological models for different values of the density parameter Ωi: (i) the cold dark matter model, (ii) the ΛCDM model, (iii) the Bose-Einstein condensate dark matter model, (iv) the Chaplygin gas model, (v) the viscous fluid cosmological model and (vi) the holographic dark energy model by using the singular isothermal sphere (SIS) model for the halos of dark matter. We note that the dependence of the energy-matter content of the universe profoundly modifies the frequency of multiple quasar images. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.