South African players and players of other nationalities who are based in South Africa are not confined to only playing games operated by the ITHUBA National Lottery. South African players can safely and legally participate in lotteries from various other countries as well as play games that simulate the lottery such as lotto mania slots.
In fact, a South African player does not even have to visit the home country of the lottery to partake in the lottery. For instance, if you want to play popular international lotteries like the Italian SuperEnalotto, you can play from South Africa even if you’ve never set foot in Italy before.
If you happen to be interested in playing incredibly huge lotteries such as Mega Millions, Powerball, SuperEnalotto and EuroMillions, you can do so through online lottery service websites. We have already provided you with a list of our top recommended online lottery service websites. Using such online platforms, players can make their lottery number selections, pay for the ticket entry online and purchase their tickets.
The way it works is simple – you pick a lottery to play, choose the required numbers and pay for the ticket online. Once your payment is confirmed, a land-based agent in the home country of the lottery you are playing will actually buy the ticket as specified by you and send you a scanned copy of the ticket. Through such online lottery websites, you can even view draw results, play through the syndicate option, and much more. In the event that your ticket wins, you will be notified and the online lottery service will even help you successfully claim the winnings.
Some of the most popular international lotteries that South African players can play are:
US Mega Millions: Mega Millions is an American lottery game which offers one of the biggest jackpots among lotteries anywhere in the world. The highest ever jackpot that was paid through this lottery game was $1.537 billion. The draw happens twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. The draw is telecasted live on a few American cable tv channels. For every entry you make, you need to pick six numbers from two separate pools of numbers. Among the six should be five picks between 1 and 70 and one pick between 1 and 25. There are 9 different prizes including the jackpot for matching all six.
SuperEnalotto
The SuperEnalotto is one of the world’s most lucrative lottery jackpots and it takes place in Italy. You don’t have to be in Italy to participate. South African players are welcome to use online services to play the SuperEnalotto. The minimum guaranteed jackpot for every draw of the SuperEnalotto is €2 million. In order to play the SuperEnalotto you need to buy a ticket on which you need to pick six main numbers between 1 and 90. If you choose to play the SuperStar version, you will have to pick an additional SuperStart number between 1 and 90. For every entry purchased, the player also gets an automatic chance to win an Instant Win prize not related to the numbers picked in the draw.
EuroMillions
The EuroMillions draw happens two times a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. The EuroMillions jackpot can reach value of up to €190 million consistently. The first EuroMillions draw took place in 2004. The draw happens in Spain and players from all over Europe and other parts of the world, including South Africa, are welcome to take part. For every entry ticket, you need to choose 5 numbers between 1 and 50 and 2 numbers between 1 and 12. If you match all 7, you win the grand jackpot.
Italy EuroJackpot
The Italy EuroJackpot is one of among the 18 lottery games that make up the EuroJackpot, a transactional European Lottery which began in 2012. The other participating countries include Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. In order to win the Jackpot, you will need to match 5 main numbers between the range of 1 to 50 and another 2 special numbers between the range of 1 to 10. The draw occurs once a week in Helsinki at 21:00 local time.
The EuroJackpot pays out at a higher rate when compared to other European lotteries such as EuroMillions or the German Lotto. The odds of winning the jackpot in the EuroJackpot is 1 in 95 million which is better than then odds of 1 in 139 million for EuroMillions or German Lotto. The biggest every jackpot which was paid out courtesy of the EuroJackpot was €90,000,000 to a player based in Finland in August of 2019. The biggest winner out of Italy recorded thus far was a win in May of 2020 which was worth €33,290,606. The EuroJackpot was formed to compete with the EuroMillions by matching the jackpot value, the idea was that the EuroJackpot value would give EuroMillions a run for its money considering the EuroJackpot would have a pool sourced from several participating countries.
German Lotto
Along with the likes of EuroMillions, EuroJackpot and ItaltySuperEnalotto, the German Lotto is one of the largest lotteries in Europe and consequently also in the world. One of the main attraction points of the German Lotto is its remarkably low price per line. Lotteries are usually inexpensive, but the German Lotto is one of the most affordable. Given the low price, the German Lotto has a huge number of players that play every draw since the loss incurred is not substantial compared to the potential reward they could get.
Apart from the top jackpot, the German Lotto offers 10 other prizes and even includes 3 other bonus games. The local name for the German Lotto is 6 aus 49 which translates to six out of 49. As this name suggests, you need to pick six numbers from 1 – 49. The jackpot winning ticket is one which matches all six numbers and also the additional Superball number.
A single line entry costs as little as €1.20, the DoubleJackpot option costs an additional €1. The additional bonus games can be played at additional costs. The bonus games are called Spiel77, Super6 andGlücksSpirale.
The minimum jackpot is guaranteed at €1 million, however, you can rest assured that it usually pays much higher than that. There is no cap on the max jackpot amount. The record for the highest jackpot paid out so far is €45.4 million. A huge perk of playing the German Lotto is that the winnings are not subject to any tax at all, all prizes are completely tax-free.
US Powerball
The US Powerball is a very popular lottery not just in the US, but also in various other parts of the world including South Africa. One of the main reasons for its popularity can be attributed to the fact that the US Powerball is credited with having paid out the biggest ever jackpot in the history of lotteries. This jackpot was of $1.586 billion and was won on 13th January 2016.
It was in April of 1992 that LottoAmerica was rebranded as the US Powerball. Along with the rebranding, the gameplay mechanism was also revolutionized and it became the gold standard for American lotteries going forward. Until the US Powerball did it in 1992, all lotteries only used one drum to draw numbers from. The US Powerball unveiled the second drum for the first time in 1992 and it has now been adopted by most of the top lotteries in the world.
The ticket costs $2 per play. Players can make an entry by choosing five main numbers from a range of 1 to 69 and 1 special number called the Powerball between the range of 1 to 26. This Powerball number is what is drawn from the second drum. To win the top prize, a ticket needs to match all five numbers as well as the Powerball number. There are also 8 other prizes up for grabs apart from the grand prize. The odds of winning the Grand Prize are 1 in 292,201,338. The draw takes place on Wednesdays and Saturdays every week at the Florida Lottery’s Tallahassee studio at 10:59 pm easter time on the dot.
Some of the biggest recorded US Powerball Jackpot are: a win of $1.6 billion in January of 2016 (the highest ever jackpot win recorded for any lottery in the world), a win of $758.7 million in August of 2017 and a win of $687.8 million in October of 2018.
Depending on where you live, winning the US Powerball could attract taxation from the Federal government as well as the State Government. Winnings can be accepted as single lump-sum cash payment or through an annuity option paid out annually over the period of 30 years.
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