National Lotteries in South Africa

Playing the lottery is popular around the world and everyone is entering for the chance of winning a massive lottery jackpot. In this guide we focus on the national lotteries offered in South Africa and everything you need to know before and while buying your lottery ticket.

The games offered in the South African national lottery can be categorized the following way:

• Lotto: Lotto, Lotto Plus 1, Lotto Plus 2, Daily Lotto
• PowerBall: PowerBall, PowerBall Plus
• Sportstake: Sportstake 8, Sportstake 13
• Raffle
• EAZiWIN

Lotto

Since the first lotto draw in 2000 South African lotto has evolved and offers now more chances than ever to win big.

• When: Lotto draws take place every Wednesday and Saturday at 21:00.
• How to play Lotto: Choose 6 numbers between 1 and 52 or use the ‘Quick Pick’ option for the lottery system to randomly generate six lucky numbers for you.
• What you can win: SA Lotto offers multimillion-rand jackpots twice per week with 8 prize divisions per draw. The jackpot is not capped and keeps growing until it is won. Therefore, we have seen massive lotto jackpots reaching nine figures over the past years.
• Cost: starting at R5.00 per board.

Lotto Plus

On top of your main lotto game you can opt-in to also play Lotto Plus 1 and Lotto Plus 2 by ticking the respective boxes. The Lotto Plus games play alongside the main lotto draw and you use the same numbers.

Playing Lotto Plus increases your chances of winning and could win three times in the same night. Lotto Plus 1 and Lotto Plus 2 cost an additional R2.50 each so if you want to enter all 3 draws (Lotto and Lotto Plus 1 and 2) the cost is R10.00. Lotto Plus cannot be played on its own.

Daily Lotto

Gone are the days where we needed to wait patiently for the next lotto draw. With Daily Lotto you can win every day of the week.

• When: Every day at 21.00 (except on Christmas Day).
• How to play Daily Lotto: Choose 5 numbers between 1-36 per board or opt-in for the ‘Quick Pick’ option where the system will randomly pick five lucky numbers for you. When you match 2 or more numbers you are already guaranteed a win but to hit the jackpot you need to match all 5 numbers.
• What you can win: The fantastic part of Daily Lotto is that the jackpot must be won. If there are no winners in a division the jackpot will be rolled down. For example, if no player can match all 5 numbers or even 4 numbers the jackpot goes into the next category. Hence, you might win big even with less matching numbers.
• Cost: starting at R3.00 per board.

Powerball

Keep in mind that the South African Powerball is different to the US Powerball lottery. However, both offer record-breaking jackpots and are played in a similar way.

• When: Tuesdays and Fridays at 21:00.
• How to play Powerball: Select 5 numbers between 1-50 and your Powerball number between 1-20. You can also opt for ‘Quick Pick’ and the system picks the six required numbers randomly for you.
• What you can win: The Powerball has 9 prize divisions. The prizes of the eights and ninths division are set to R15 and R10. All other divisions receive a percentage of the total prize pool. If the jackpot is not won, it rolls over and has quite often reached millions of Rand jackpots. The latest big winner went away in 2019 with R232 million.
• Cost: from R5.00 per board.

Powerball Plus

Powerball Plus is played alongside the main PowerBall game. For an additional R2.50 you can increase your chances of winning.

Raffle

The National Lottery Raffle is a special game that is played each year at different dates. Next to cash you have the chance to win high value non-cash prizes such as cars or houses. The 2019 Raffle played on 10 January 2020 and 10 lucky winners drove away with brand-new Mercedes-Benz C200 Cabriolets. The overall paid out prize money was R12.5 million.

A certain amount of raffle tickets is available and sold on a fist come, first serve basis for each raffle. Once all tickets are sold the sale closes. Each raffle ticket has a unique number and unlike in other lottery games you cannot pick your preferred number combination. For the 2019 Raffle the ticket prize was set at R50.00 and you could buy a maximum of R2,000 worth of Raffle tickets.

A date for the next National Lottery Raffle is not yet announced but we will update once we know more.

Sportstake

The SA National Lottery offers two sports-themed lotto games which are very popular with South African soccer fans. Playing Sportstake 8 or Sportstake 13 is equally simple as playing lotto. Instead of picking your lucky numbers you predict the outcome of a certain amount of selected soccer fixtures.

Sportstake 13

• When: Sportstake 13 plays twice a week. The list of midweek fixtures is published from Sunday 6:00. The weekend fixture listing is available from Thursday 6:00.

• How to play Sportstake 13:
  The aim of Sportstake 13 is to predict the outcome of 13 soccer matches from a variety of different soccer leagues around the world including the PSL, the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, or the German Bundesliga.
  
  To win on Sportstake 13 you will need to predict at least 10 of the 13 games correctly. You do not need to guess the exact score but you must decide whether the game will end with a win for the home team [1], the away team [2] or if the game might result in a draw [X]. Results are recorded as the score after the regular 90 minutes and potential extra time but excludes penalty shootouts.
  
  Like the ‘Quick Pick’ option in Lotto games there is the ‘Propick’ option available for Sportstake betting. ‘Propick’ is a quick play system functionality that will predict the match outcomes on your behalf by using historic data, expert opinions, and a randomised selection. This option can be very useful and you only need to select your preferred bet size.

• What you can win: The prize pool for Sportstake 13 is not fixed as 50% of the net sales is paid out and allocated into 4 prize division. The top prizes of the Sportstake 13 soccer jackpot pool regularly exceed R300,000 for predicting all fixtures correctly.

• Cost: Minimum R2.00 per board. If you want to use the multi-play option to predict more than one outcome per fixture while doubling or tripling your winning chances a higher bet is required.

Sportstake 8

• When: Fixture lists are published 3 times a week, timing depends on the selected fixtures.
• How to play Sportstake 8:
  Compared to Sportstake 13 in Sportstake 8 you must only predict the outcome of 8 selected professional soccer matches drawn from different leagues or international fixtures. While in Sportstake 13 you must guess the outcome of each game in Sportstake 8 you have to predict the outcome of the first half and the second half separately for each game.
  
  If you think the home team will lead the first half you add [1] in the respective space, if you believe the away team will be in front after the first half you add [2] and if you think the result after the first half is a draw you enter [X]. The same is applied for the second half so in total you enter 16 predictions [1, X, 2]. Results are recorded as the score at the end of each 45-minute period plus possible referee additional time but excludes extra time or penalty shootouts.
  
  As for Sportstake 13, you also have the ‘Propick’ option available for Sportstake 8. Sportstake 8 is a very interesting but also challenging game as the correct guess of both halves is quite difficult so using the system to predict for you could increase your chances of winning.

• What you can win: To win with Sportstake 8 you must correctly predict 13 of the possible 16 outcomes. Remember that you are not predicting the outcome of a match but the result of each half. While this can be tricky it can also be very rewarding due to the large prize pools.

• Cost: Minimum R2.00 per board.

EAZiWIN

For an instant play, instant money win lottery alternative you should try the EAZiWIN games. The EaziWin instant win games come in an array of themes and are based on varying mechanics. While some games such as Soccer League, Lucky Jersey or Balloon Bonanza are simple scratch games other games, including Candy Cash, are using elements of casino style slot games.

• How to play EAZiWIN: You can play the Eazi Win games online via your trusted online betting partner anytime and anywhere. There are no draw times and you can access and play the games instantly. Plus, you will immediately know if and how much you have won.

• What you can win: Most EaziWin scratchcard and instant games pay out between R75,000 up to R200,000. The exact jackpot amounts vary per game and your placed wager. Read our more detailed overview of the Eazi Win lotto scratch cards and instant games for further information.

• Cost: R3.00 – R10.00, depending on game and preferred bet size.

Enjoy the national lottery fun!

The South African National Lottery offers a fun, varied and affordable entertainment. While we usually bought tickets at our local retailer, we are now more and more participating in the lottery online as it is convenient and safe and comes with quite a few benefits. If you are searching for an online lottery betting site you can trust, have a look at our top betting sites for lottery.