Which Australian Lottery Has the Best Odds?
Lotteries in Australia include various lotto games licensed by Australian lottery companies. Lotteries operators are licensed at a state or territory level, and include both state government-owned, not-for-profit and private sector companies. Most major Lotteries have now moved into the online marketplace.
So, the best Australian lotteries are the Monday Lotto, Tuesday Lotto, Wednesday Lotto, Thursday Lotto and Saturday Lotto
The most popular lotteries in Australia are the three standard 6/45 Lotto games. The Monday, Wednesday and Saturday Lotto are all essentially the same game, with the same game mechanics and same odds of 1 : 8,145,060. The only difference is that the Saturday Lotto offers bigger jackpots each week as well as regular Super draws and Mega draws.
The Oz Lotto, Australia’s most popular lotto, was launched in 1994. Originally it was pretty much the same as the Monday, Wednesday and Saturday games until 2005, when another number was added making it a 7/45 game. This obviously increased the odds enormously, but then so, too, did the jackpots. The odds of getting all seven numbers correct are 1 : 45,379,620.
Then there is the most popular lotto the Australian Powerball and is a solid lottery in its own right.
In jackpot terms it takes second place on the Australian lottery leaderboard, just behind the Oz Lotto. The odds of hitting the jackpot are 1 : 76,767,600, though it’s the additional prize divisions you’ll want to pay really close attention to – 1 : 4,040,400 for the second division and just 1 : 376,312 for division three! It also has the most ways to win of any of our Australian lotteries, with eight prize divisions in total!
So if you ask what is the best lottery in Australia then it all depends on what type of play you want and what you are looking for. If you want the best odds go with the Saturday Lotto, and its smaller siblings the Monday and Wednesday Lotto games. If you want the biggest jackpots then the Oz Lotto is the game for you. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for a great all-round lottery game with lots of ways to win then your answer is the Thursday Lotto.
Besides there are other interesting lotto games such as instant scratchies, soccer pool lotto draws, set for life and other games to choose from.
Where you can play Lottery and the license operators in Australia
Tatts Group Limited, the only official Government licensed operator in Australia. It operates under the “Tatts” brand in Victoria, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory. It also manages Queensland’s Golden Casket Lottery Corporation (which it took over from the Queensland government in 2007), New South Wales Lotteries in NSW and the ACT and South Australian Lotteries in South Australia and Intralot Australia, which operates under “Intralot” in Tasmania; The publicly listed Jumbo Interactive, an online re-seller of lotteries operating as Ozlotteries.
The privately owned company Netlotto, an online re-seller of lotteries via the www.netlotto.com.au website.
From 2007 to 2014 Intralot Australia held a lottery licence to sell Instant Scratch-its, Keno and bingo tickets in Victoria. The licence was sold to Tatts Group on October 2014.
State government-owned corporations were once a major sector in the industry. However, with Tatts taking over operation of all state-owned lotteries (though the states still retain legal ownership), the only remaining state owned-and-operated lottery in Australia is Lottery west in Western Australia.
Although the organisations are predominantly state-based, Australia has a number of national lottery games. Currently, Tattersall’s and the state-owned lotteries operate as a bloc to jointly conduct the national games, pooling their entries and winnings.
On June 1, 2016 Tattersall’s created a national lottery brand called ‘the Lott’. The brand encompasses all its jurisdictional lottery brands under this single entity. Corresponding with the change in branding, online lottery purchases were moved from Tatts.com to the new official lotteries website https://thelott.com.
Remember Australian lotteries are subject to many regulations, which generally vary by state. The minimum age to purchase lottery products is 18 in all states except for Western Australia, where the age is lowered to 16.
