Oz lotto
What is Oz Lotto?
Oz Lotto is Australia’s national lottery game. It is owned and operated by Tatts Group. Oz Lotto was Australia’s very first national lottery game. It is played across the nation and has a guaranteed first division prize of 2 million AUD.
How did it originate?
Oz Lotto was introduced in the year 1994, on February 26th. The game was originally on Saturday with the ‘Saturday Lotto’. A player needed six numbers out of a total 45 in order to hit the jackpot. In 2005, however, a seventh number was introduced, which increased the odds of winning the jackpot prize. Since those changes, the draw requires seven lucky numbers to be matched in order to win the jackpot. The minimum prize level remained the same, which means there are now seven prize divisions as opposed to six.
How big is it today?
Since its launch in 1994, Oz Lotto has remained popular with thanks to its enormous jackpots. The biggest Oz Lotto jackpot to date was the $100,000,000 win in December 2013 where 1 in 3 Australian adults out of the entire population bought tickets into the draw. Four winners took home a jackpot of $111,972,151.04 in the draw that took place on the 6th of November 2012.
Today, each begins with a minimum jackpot of 2 million AUD.
Who can play Oz Lotto?
Lottery players do not need to be Australian residents to play this lottery. Anyone from around the world can get tickets for this exciting game. There are many reputable online lottery retailers who buy tickets on the behalf of customers overseas. All entries are automatically registered in your name. Any prize that you win, will be paid out in full by the lottery provider, apart from a small admin fee that will be deducted because they bought the ticket for you on your behalf.
When can I play Oz Lotto?
You can purchase online lottery tickets at any time of day or night, provided you enter them by cut-off time. Each online lottery retailer has different cut-off times so that the agent has enough time to go and get tickets for the draw.
The draws take place every Tuesday. Cut-off time for tickets is usually around 7:30 pm (8:30 pm AEDT), so make sure you get your tickets for the draw well before this time to avoid paying for a ticket when the agent doesn’t have enough time to get it for you.
Oz Lotto Prize Structure
In order to win an Oz Lotto jackpot, lottery players must match seven main numbers. The jackpot starts at 2 million AUD. If more than one player matches all seven numbers, they will need to share the jackpot amount with the other winner equally. If there are no jackpot winners for that draw, the jackpot will roll over and create a bigger prize amount for the following draw.
In order to win a prize, players must match at least three main numbers and either a supplementary ball. The odds of achieving that are 1 in 87. The odds of winning the division 1 prize, or jackpot, are 1 in over 45 million.
The prize breakdown is as follows:
Match 7 – 1 in 45,379,620 – win 40% of prize fund
Match 6 plus either supplementary – 1 in 3,241,401 – 1.7% of prize fund
Match 6 – 1 in 180,078 – 3.5% of prize fund
Match 5 plus either supplementary – 1 in 29,602 – 1.8% of prize fund
Match 5 – 1 in 3,430 – 2.1% of prize fund
Match 4 – 1 in 154 – 24% of prize fund
Match 3 plus either supplementary – 1 in 87 – 26.9% of prize fund
The Biggest Wins
The biggest Oz Lotto prize to date was won on the 6th of November 2012 after four tickets shared 111 million AUD amongst themselves.
In December 2013, Oz Lotto changed the lives of a group of girlfriends after they won 70 million AUD. This entered the Australian record books for the biggest lotto jackpot eve won by a single ticket. The ticket was a quick pick bought on the Gold Coast.
In June 2008, a 58 million AUD jackpot was claimed by an anonymous player from a working class suburb just north of Melbourne.
106 million AUD was won in June 2009 on a Tuesday night. The jackpot was shared by two lucky tickets. One winner was a 40-year-old man from Adelaide and the other was an anonymous middle-aged couple from the Gold Coast. They each took home $53 million.
Distribution of Revenue
Lotterywest was established in 1932 and it runs the national lotteries in Western Australia. In 2015 and 2016, Lotterywest’s sales brought in $889 million in revenue.
60% of this money goes towards prizes for players. The remaining 40% of this revenue goes towards operating costs, commission to retailers, and upgrading the Western Australian community. Public hospitals, sporting organisations, arts and cultural groups, and thousands of charities and community groups receive support. Grants are also given to underprivileged groups of society.
How to play Oz Lotto
In the Oz Lotto game, there are 45 balls numbered 1 to 45. Seven main numbers are drawn at random. You can either choose your own numbers or make use of the quick pick method to have your numbers generated automatically for you.
Depending on your winning combinations, it will dictate how much you win with the Oz Lotto. Make sure you check the prize breakdown to find out what prize division your number combinations have landed you in. Each prize division has varying prize sums.
Keep an eye out for Oz Lotto scams
Lottery scams have been around for as long as people have been playing the lottery. That’s the unfortunate reality. More recently, players are now more tech savvy and cautious, but the older generation aren’t as tech savvy, and therefore fall prey to con artists much more easily.
Con artists, however, are getting even more tech savvy than any other lottery player in the world in their bid to scam you out of your hard-earned money. They are constantly coming up with creative ways of getting money out of their victims. Read the following information about lottery scams to protect yourself in the future.
The majority of lottery scams reach you in the form of an email, letter, or even text message. The con artists will usually try to make you believe that you have won a lot of money, a sweepstakes competition, or a lottery that you don’t even remember entering. When you tell them that you haven’t played any lotteries of late, they will tell you that your email address was randomly selected as the winner. Don’t believe them. No legitimate lottery anywhere in the world chooses email addresses as winners.
The scams usually pressure you into replying quickly or else your prize will expire. With a legitimate lottery win, you usually have an entire year to claim your prize. The fraudster will also ask you to keep your win private until your winnings have been secured into your account, which will actually never happen. They just don’t want other people to instil doubts in you or for you to go to the police and report them.
The scam will then proceed by asking you to pay them fees in order to claim the prize. The fees will be come in the form of “processing fees”, “insurance costs”, “government taxes” and “bank or courier fees”. In more serious scams, they will even go so far as to ask for your personal information to “verify your identity”, when actually, they are just trying to steal your identity.
To protect yourself from any lottery scams, never send any money whatsoever to anyone. Never give anyone your personal information if you don’t know who they really are. If asked to call a number you don’t know or cannot verify, don’t do it! You will rack up a hefty bill. Never click on any spammy links in emails, and never open any attachments. Always seek advice from others before going ahead and making a mistake you will regret for the rest of your life.
Always remember that if it sounds and looks too good to be true, it probably is! If you suspect lottery fraud, you should seek help from the police, or your local office of Fair Trading.
Stay safe out there, and win millions the only safe and legitimate way…by playing the lottery online!