Do you know that the South African National Lottery provides one of the simplest methods to help people become millionaires? Of course, only a few lucky ones have managed to use this opportunity over the years. By selecting the right numbers, players have the chance to win millions of euros (South African Rands to be more precise). While it’s true that winning the main prize at the South African National lottery (their Lotto game) is difficult, it’s also true that it’s worth trying.

Players who fancy lottery games would love to find the best technique that can help them increase the odds of winning the South African National Lottery – Lotto jackpot. Some experienced players and knowledgeable people can confirm that there are certain things that you can do to increase the odds of winning (like buying more tickets), but in its essence, this is a game of luck. To prepare yourself before you start playing, it’s highly recommended to read a lotto guide like the one we’ve prepared for all potential and current players.

• Learn about the most popular lotto game operated by the South African National Lottery
• Find out how to play this interesting lottery game
• Check the biggest and luckiest winners of all time

We should also mention that players can’t create a “secure” system that will help them beat this game. However, in case you want to know this game inside and out, we suggest reading this guide.

South African National Lottery Statistics

Location: Africa
Owner: ITHUBA Holdings
Year Founded:  2000
Play Online: In dozens of countries
Biggest Winning: 6 million euros
Jackpots: No
Drawing day: Wednesday and Saturday
Total Numbers: 52
Cost per ticket: 0.3 euros per selection
Number of combinations: 20,358,520

South African Lottery (or their Lotto game to be more precise) was established in 2000. Before that, gambling was in a grey area (semi-legal). Today, this lotto game is very popular and played by thousands of people every month. There are two draws per week, every week of the year – on Wednesday and Saturday. Although Lotto is played mostly by people from South Africa, people from other countries can play too and they are usually buying tickets online for this purpose.

The fact that the chance of winning the main prize are one in a few million doesn’t change the mind of thousands of loyal players because they know that there were many winners in the last two decades.

It’s worth mentioning that in addition to Lotto, the South African National Lottery has a few variants of the game – Lotto Plus 1 and Lotto Plus 2 – as well as a few other lottery games including Powerball, Sportstake 13 and EAZiWin.

1. The History of South African National Lottery

We have already highlighted the fact that the South African National Lottery was introduced in 2000. The first draw took place on 11 March 2000 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Only a few small changes became part of this game over these two decades.

2. How to Play South African National Lottery

One of the things that make the South African National Lottery and their Lotto game attractive is that you don’t need any special preparation to start with it. In case you are a citizen of South Africa or for some reason, you are in South Africa as a foreign citizen, you can buy a ticket in local stores. This is one of the cheapest tickets you can find in big international lotto games and it cost just 5 Rands or around 0.3 euros.

If you think that you are ready to play SA Lotto, you have to follow these steps.

1. Get a Lotto betslip in a local store
2. Use a pencil or pen to select six numbers our of 52 on any board you like
3. Give the betslip to the teller and get it approved
4. You’ll be given a receipt with all the selected numbers. Write down your full name on the back of that receipt.
5. Wait for the draw

As previously mentioned, the draws take place every Wednesday and Saturday. When playing online, just like in the case of playing offline, you can leave the software to select the numbers automatically or do this on your own. Make sure that you are purchasing tickets from a legit source when playing online.

3. Where to Play South African National Lottery

International fans of lottery games will be glad to hear that you don’t have to be a South African citizen to play this game and win at the South African National Lottery. All you have to do is to purchase a ticket, make a selection and get it validated, be it online or offline. In case lottery games are legal in your country, there’s no reason to worry about anything.

Every player has two chances to play this game every week. The draws take place in Johannesburg at 8:56 pm CET. To find the results, you can use legit websites, check the draws on live TV or use the official South African National Lottery site.

4. How to Win at South African National Lottery

Playing the South African National Lottery, especially Lotto, is an exciting thing. The thought of winning the main prize is what drives so many people to these tickets. To win at the South African National Lottery (the Lotto game), players must land at least two matching regular numbers and one bonus ball.

But, this is not the only combination that will pay a prize. That’s why we have created this list of combinations that players can make at Lotto as part of the South African National Lottery.

• 2 main numbers and a bonus number
• 3 main numbers
• 3 main numbers and a bonus number
• 4 main numbers
• 4 main numbers and a bonus number
• 5 main numbers
• 5 main numbers and a bonus number
• All 6 numbers

The main prize that you can expect in this lotto game can’t be smaller than 110.000 euros. To be honest, there are a few other international lotteries with much higher guaranteed main prizes, but once again, we would like to point out that the cost of tickets here is much lower. 45% of ticket sales go towards the prize pool. If there’s no main prize won in the current round, the funds are redirected to the next round. There is no upper limit related to the main prize.

Now that you have become familiar with the basic rules of this game, you might be interested in learning how to choose the winning numbers. There’s no other way to say this – but, you can’t do this. Everything in this game is random and based on luck.

5. The South African National Lottery Drawing

You can watch the South African National Lottery (Lotto) draw on live TV, on SABC 2 to be more precise. This is a family public TV channel from South Africa. The drawing is organized in a studio and it’s managed by two hosts. A machine draws the number automatically and there’s a commission that monitors the process.

6. South African National Lottery Results

After every round, players can check the African National Lottery results in more than one place. Some players prefer the old-school approach and visit local stores where they’ve purchased the tickets to see the results. If you are watching SABC 2 you can watch the draw itself in real-time. The Internet is also a good option to check the results.

Those of you that will choose the Internet can see the results on the official SA National Lottery website. But, you can also use news sites from South Africa or specialized international websites that are covering big lottery games. On most of these sites, you can check past results.

7. Big Winners in South African National Lottery

There were a few big winners in the past two decades in South African National Lottery (Lotto). Of course, there were many more winners of smaller prizes. If you are like most people, then you are probably interested in learning more about those who have won the main prize worth a few million Rands/euros. Here are a couple of stories about them.

Multiple winners across South Africa

The highest win recorded at Lotto by the South African National Lottery was shared between four players. After 21 rollovers, the prize has reached 110 million Rands or 6 million euros. Four lucky players including a 58-year-old man from Cape Town have shared 1.5 million euros each. The winners have decided to stay anonymous.

A woman from Cape Town

There was another big winner in the South African National Lottery from Cape Town. Namely, in May 2019, a petrol attendant from this city has decided to try her luck by buying a Lotto ticket at a gas station. After a day, she realized that this ticket has brought her 4.2 million euros. According to some news stations, the winner has given around 100.000 euros to a petrol attendant that has helped her that day.

Even though the winner stayed anonymous, she revealed that she was planning on buying a big house and finance her daughter’s college studies.

8. Jackpots at South African National Lottery

There’s no conventional jackpot prize at South African National Lottery. You have to pick six correct numbers and that’s it. You can’t win this prize with 5 main and one bonus number. The bonus number works only for lower-tier prizes. In any case, winning the main prize is not simple, but there’s always a chance.

To make things clearer, we will mention that winning the main prize in this Lotto game comes with odds of 1 in 20,358,520. There’s no doubt that the numbers look a little bit scary, but as we have already mentioned, many people have already won this prize. Besides the main prize, you can win other good prizes.

By paying a little bit more, the South African National Lottery gives you a chance to play a modified version of the Lotto game – Lotto Plus 1 and Lotto Plus 2. These games look the same as the regular Lotto game but give you a second or third chance to win. In this way, you have more chances of winning by playing more and the prizes you can expect are a little bit lower.

According to South African law, Lotto wins are not taxed. But, if you are a foreign player, you will have to open a South African bank account, file for a permit to stay in South Africa and take care of your winnings there. Also, you might have to pay taxes in your home country.

9. Winning South African National Lottery Numbers

We’ll be clear here – no one can predict the winning numbers at Lotto every turn. This is impossible because everything about this game is randomized. So, only with the help of pure luck, a person can guess the right numbers. To make the process of playing easier, simpler and more interesting, there are a few things that players can take into account. Some of them might even affect the chances of winning at least in theory.

• More is good. Two tickets are better than one – as simple as that. When you have two tickets, you have more chances of winning the lottery at least in theory. So, buy as many tickets as you can without affecting your budget needed for proper everyday functioning. Or simply put, don’t use money that you can’t afford to use.
• Use the same combos. This is an advice that has absolutely no effect at the odds of winning. But, you will save a lot of time because you won’t have to think about the numbers and you’ll know whether you have the numbers as they are drawn on live TV.
• Use special dates. Our birthdays, the birthdays of our children, our anniversaries, holidays – all these things mean something to us and by selecting these numbers on the ticket we will finish the process of selecting numbers much faster and make the numbers meaningful.

In theory, every number has an equal chance to be drawn at lotto games. Yet, in the South African National Lottery, just like in the case of other lotteries, there are a few numbers that appear among drawn numbers more often than others. In this case, these numbers include 23, 8, 48, and 30.

10. How Much Money Can You Win on South African National Lottery Lotto?

Should we say that playing South African National Lottery lotto is a smart idea? Yes. The money you are putting at risk (0.3 euros per selection) is worth it. The main prize in this game is not lower than 110.000 euros and the main prize is often worth a few million euros. The highest win so far was worth 6 million euros.

Even smaller wins in this game are attractive. Some of them are worth tens of thousands of euros while the smallest one is worth 1.2 euros.