Oz Lotto: Official Guide, Rules, Odds & How to Play

Oz Lotto Quick Facts

Number of balls to pick: 7 main numbers 1 to 47 Odds to win the jackpot: 1 in 62,891,499 Oz Lotto draws: every Monday at 8.30pm AEST Ticket cost: $1.10

What is Oz Lotto?

Oz Lotto is one of the most popular Australian lottery. The draw takes place each Tuesday at 8.30pm AEST, where 7 main balls and 3 supplementary balls are drawn.

Oz Lotto was introduced on February 26, 1994, by Tattersall's (now part of the Tatts Group) and promoted as Australia's first fully national lottery game.

There have been several changes in the game since it was first introduced, and the current format is valid as of May 11th, 2022.

The starting jackpot is $3 million. The highest jackpot amount was reached in 2012. Originally guaranteed at $100 million, four winners shared a Division 1 pool of $111,972,151.04 in the draw on 6 November 2012.

Players win by matching one of the 7 ways to win. You will need to match all 7 main balls to win the jackpot. The overall odds of winning a prize in the game are 1 in 51.

How to play Oz Lotto?

Each Oz Lotto draw involves the random selection of seven balls numbered from 1 to 47, which serve as the primary winning numbers. Following these, three supplementary numbers are drawn from the remaining pool of 40 balls. Together, these ten numbers—comprising the seven main numbers and three supplementary numbers—form the winning combination for Oz Lotto.

Select 7 main numbers from 1-47. Match a minimum of 3 main numbers and 1 supplementary number to win a prize. To win a jackpot, you have to match all 7 main numbers.

Supplementary balls are only considered for when you match 3, 5 or 6 main balls to win the next division prize.

What are the odds to win Oz Lotto jackpot?

Division	Winning selections	Odds	% of Prize Fund
1	Match 7 numbers	1 in 62,891,499	40%
2	Match 6 main numbers + 1 supplementary number	1 in 2,994,834	2.2%
3	Match 6 main numbers	1 in 242,825	2.6%
4	Match 5 main numbers + 1 supplementary number	1 in 26,271	2.0%
5	Match 5 main numbers	1 in 4,497	1.6%
6	Match 4 main numbers	1 in 182	19.8%
7	Match 3 main numbers + 1 supplementary number	1 in 71	31.8%

The odds of winning Oz Lotto jackpot are not great! You are more likely to be struck by lightning (which is one in 12,000) than to win the Oz Lotto lottery!

Oz Lotto Odds Calculations

If you ever wondered, why are the odds so sky-high, let's have a look at how exactly are they being calculated.

In every Oz Lotto drawing, 7 white balls are drawn together with 3 supplementary balls, which are not considered when winning the main prize.

Main Balls Odds

There are 47 numbers to be picked from the total pool of the main balls. None of the balls can repeat. To find out how many possibilities are there to pick 7 balls from the pool of 47 balls, we can use this simple combinatorics formula:

(47 * 46 * 45 * 44 * 43 * 42 * 41) / (7 * 6 * 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1) = 62,891,499

That means there are over 62 million ways to pick 7 numbers from total pool of 47 numbers without repeating.

Supplementary Balls Odds

These balls are only considered for lower prize tiers and not considered for the main jackpot prize.

Overall Odds To Win Oz Lotto

To add this all together, we just need to consider the overall odds to win with the Main Balls.

Total odds = 62,891,499

So if you wanted to purchase every possible combination to guarantee you winning the jackpot, you would need to purchase over 62 million tickets!

But the good news is, there are better ways to improve your odds of winning Oz Lotto without spending so much money.

How can I increase my chances of winning the Oz Lotto jackpot?

There are several ways how to increase your chances to win the jackpot, and we specialize in doing just that! You can find all the information to help you win here: How to win Oz Lotto lottery

What are the most common numbers in Oz Lotto?

Please refer to our Oz Lotto statistics page where we provide all the statistics you need including most often drawn single numbers, number pairs, triplets and more.

Where do I get the latest Oz Lotto results?

You can find the latest Oz Lotto results on our site right after the draw takes place. We also provide full draw history since beginning of Oz Lotto history.

Winning VS Losing Combinations

Did you know that after each Oz Lotto draw, there will be exactly:

Winning Combinations: 7,031,390 (5.7%)
Losing Combinations: 116,425,890 (94.3%)

Winning Probability Calculations

In the Oz Lotto, you have to pick 7 numbers from 1 to 47. To win the smallest prize, you need to match either at least 2 main numbers plus 1 supplementary number or at least 3 main numbers without any supplementary numbers. The number of combinations that will always win any prize after each draw is calculated as follows:

Total Number of Combinations

The total number of ways to choose 7 main numbers from 47 is given by:

$ \binom{47}{7} = \frac{47!}{7!(47-7)!} = 123,457,280 $

Winning Combinations

To find out how many combinations win any prize, we calculate the number of ways to match either at least 2 main numbers plus 1 supplementary number or at least 3 main numbers:

Matching Exactly 2 Main Numbers Plus 1 Supplementary Number

The number of ways to match exactly 2 main numbers and 1 supplementary number is:

$ \binom{7}{2} \times \binom{2}{1} \times \binom{40}{4} = 3,832,740 $

Matching Exactly 3 Main Numbers

The number of ways to match exactly 3 main numbers is:

$ \binom{7}{3} \times \binom{40}{4} = 3,198,650 $

Total Winning Combinations

Summing up all these winning combinations:

$ 3,832,740 + 3,198,650 = 7,031,390 $

Non-Winning Combinations

The number of non-winning combinations is given by:

$ \text{Total Combinations} - \text{Winning Combinations} = 123,457,280 - 7,031,390 = 116,425,890 $

Conclusion

Therefore, there are 7,031,390 combinations that will always win any prize after each draw in the Oz Lotto.

Oz Lotto Notable changes

October 18, 2005, format change

On 18 October 2005, a seventh number was added from the original 6 numbers which greatly increased the odds of winning in Division 1 = jackpot.

May 17, 2022, format change

On 11 May 2022 extra 2 balls were added to the pool or 45 main balls along with the addition of an extra supplementary number, making it a total of 47 balls to choose from. The overall odds to win the jackpot shot up from 45,379,620 to 62,891,499.