South African Lotto
 Current Jackpot R 2,000,000
South African National Lottery 
The South African Lotto is the premier lottery game in South Africa. Lotteries in South Africa can trace their history back to 1984 when Ciskei introduced a lottery that lasted until the early 1990’s. Another lottery was established in Transkei in 1989 which was run by Score-A-Lot. Another South African lottery began in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in 1992. It was called the Natal Lotto or KZN Lotto and ran for eight years raising R869 million. The current South African National Lottery was established in the year 2000 and it has more players than any other from of wagering and gambling in South Africa. When it began, the South African Lotto was run by Uthingo but it is now operated by Gidani, a company formed in 2005 to tender for the license to run the SA Lotto. The South African government awarded Gidani the license to run the South African National Lottery in October 2006. The go ahead was given for Gidani to begin lottery operations for 7 years commencing in April 2007. Games offered by the South African National Lottery include Sportstake, Wina Manje scratch cards, Lotto Plus and the most popular lottery game in South Africa…the South African Lotto…
South African Lotto – Overview 
The South African Lotto is a traditional draw-style, lotto jackpot game and is the premier game offered by the South African National Lottery. The South African Lotto commenced operations on March 2nd 2000 with President Thabo Mbeki launching the game outside Cape Town, at Yeve Butchery in Langa. The very first draw for the South African Lotto took place on Saturday, March 11th 2000. The SA Lotto was a once per week lottery with draws taking place on Saturdays until the introduction of a Wednesday draw on October 3rd 2001 making the South African Lottery a twice per week game. Each time that the SA Lotto jackpot is not won, it will “roll over” and be added onto the jackpot for the next draw. The rollover can occur up to 4 times making for some large jackpot sums. If the jackpot is still not won on the 4th rollover, the top prize will be split amongst the winners of the second prize division. We are very happy to have given the South African Lotto a detailed review and would highly recommend taking a good look at how it works below…
How It Works… 
The South African Lotto game uses what’s called a 6/49 matrix which means that when playing the SA Lotto, you need to select 6 numbers from a pool of numbers from 1 to 49 – if you match all 6 numbers drawn then you will be a winner of the first category prize – the Lotto jackpot. For each game, 7 numbers are drawn from a traditional ball drawing machine containing 49 numbers – as opposed to using a Random Number Generator – the first 6 numbers being the Main Numbers and then a 7th ball being the Bonus Number. In addition to the jackpot itself, there are 6 other ways in which you can win on the SA Lotto, which means that are a great number of prizes to be won twice per week for all who play this game. A “QuickPick” facility is available when playing the South African Lotto very much the same as the “Lucky Dip” option that is used in the UK National Lottery or Europe’s Euro-Millions or nearly all USA lottery games – which means that you can ask the lottery retailer or computer to randomly select all your SA Lottery numbers for you. So, playing the SA Lotto is simple…just select your own 6 numbers or request them to be randomly generated for you by choosing the “QuickPick” option. Draws for the SA Lotto take place on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 9pm and you can easily check the South African Lotto results as the draws are televised live. The cost of each entry into the South African Lotto is R3.50 per line.
Who Can Play? 
As with most lotteries around the world, previously only citizens living in South Africa itself were allowed to play in any of the South African National Lottery games including the SA Lotto - you used to have to purchase your SA lottery tickets from an authorized retailer based in South Africa. Today, though, this is not a concern as there are a good number of online lottery ticket sales companies such as TheLotter who are both authorized and genuine - you are able to select your SA Lotto numbers online and purchase your tickets no matter where in the world you live. This is great news of course if you live outside of South Africa and want to play the South African Lotto and ensure your entry into the next draw or simply want to have the convenience and ease of being able to buy lottery tickets online. Once you have entered into the South Africa Lottery draw, you can then easily check the SA Lotto results here by using our World Lottery Results service to see how you have done and to find out if you have become one of the lucky Lotto winners. You will need to be 18 years of age to be eligible to purchase a ticket for any of the South African National Lottery games including the Lotto. Click here to Play the South African Lotto Now
Information & Background 
The South African National Lottery operator, Gidani, has the distinction of being the first lottery operator in South Africa to offer 34% of its revenue to good causes since the National Lottery was introduced back in the year 2000. Since it began operations, Lotto South Africa has created more than 714 millionaires and paid winnings on over 300 million tickets. Lotto Plus was introduced in November 2003 as an add-on game to the South African Lotto with its first draw taking place on November 26th. The game in South Africa is so popular that research has found that a staggering 82% of the country’s population played the SA Lotto every week and that with 53% of the population, this was indeed, the only form of wagering that they took part in.
What Are The Odds? 
The odds of winning on the South African Lotto are very competitive when compared to many lotteries around the world and with 7 different ways in which you can win, this makes for a lot of prizes to be won each week. The chances of winning an SA Lotto jackpot by matching 6 main numbers are 1 in 14 million – for these odds you could be one of the Lotto jackpot winners. For one of the prizes in the second division, the odds come in at 1 in 2.3 million for matching 5 of the main numbers plus the bonus number. The likelihood of winning a third division prize comes in at 1 in 55 thousand for matching 5 of the main numbers and for a prize in the fourth division the odds are 1 in 22 thousand for matching 4 of the main numbers plus the bonus number. For a fifth division prize the odds of you winning are 1 in just 1 thousand for matching 4 of the main numbers with 6th division odds being 1 in 800 for matching just 3 of the main numbers plus the bonus number. The final prize division – the seventh division – carries odds of 1 in just 61 for matching just 3 of the main numbers.
Record Jackpots…
The largest ever jackpot to date on the South African Lotto was R44,700,128 which was won on February 15th 2003 after rolling over 4 times. The win was shared by 4 lucky players who each received R11,175,032. The largest single ticket win on the SA Lotto was R30,352,465 and this occurred on November 16th 2005 with a player from Gauteng being the lucky winner. The highest number of players to share in an SA Lotto jackpot win occurred when 33 players each won R111,901 after sharing the first division prize on March 15th 2003.
How Are Jackpots Paid?
If you are the lucky winner of a South African Lotto jackpot, you ill be paid your winnings in the form of a cash lump sum. All South African National Lottery prizes are paid out as cash. You will need to claim any SA Lotteries prize, including the jackpot, if you are a winner, within 365 days of the draw taking place. If there are any unclaimed prizes, the National Lottery Distribution Fund will hold 50% of the monies which will be distributed towards various good causes. If you play lottery online however, whatever your win, this will not be a concern for you, as your accredited lottery ticket sales agency will take care of all these details for you, whether it is TheLotter or whichever company you decide to use.
Where The Money Goes… 
34% of all revenue generated by the South African National Lottery is paid over to the National Lottery Distribution Fund – NLDT – for onward allocation to charitable recipients. Various concerns benefit from lottery revenue in South Africa with a major beneficiary being reconstruction and development projects which in turn provide a much better quality of life for many citizens of South Africa. Click here to
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