Oz Lotto

The Australian lottery, which was created in 1895 by Tatersalls Company is one of the oldest lottery companies in the world. They are also home to the OZ Lotto game, which is one of the most popular games in Australia and indeed all over the world. Today, the Australian lottery is still managed by the Tatersalls corporation, though they work in cooperation with the Australian government.

The OZ Lotto

The OZ lotto game was created in 1994 and became the only national lottery game in the country (other games were offered in the various Australian states, but not nationwide)until 1996 when it was joined by the Australian Powerball game.

OZ Lotto is played once a week, on Tuesdays and is a progressive style jackpot lottery. This means that every time someone doesn’t win, your jackpot gets bigger. The game has changed over the years however, as it now features a 7th number, whereas the original game required picking just six correct numbers.

Because of the 7th number, it has been split into different official game names even though the game is the same all over the country. This means that playing Oz Lotto in Victoria, Tasmania, Northern Territories and the Australia Capital region means playing Super 7s Lotto. Playing the game in Queensland means playing Oz 7 Lotto and playing the game in other parts of Australia means playing Oz Lotto, though the game shares the same jackpot across the country, regardless of what it’s called.

Game Type

Oz Lotto is a traditional style lottery game in which you pick seven numbers out of a possible 45 to win the jackpot. This is contrast to most other lottery games, which either have a six number jackpot or a six number+1 style jackpot, where a separate “powerball” is the deciding factor in winning the lottery.

Participating in the Game

Australians can purchase tickets for the Oz Lotto game at ticket counters all over the country. However, others are able to purchase tickets as well, simply by buying them through the Internet at special websites which cater to overseas customers. The age limit for participation in the Oz Lotto game varies from state to state in Australia with some states allowing 16 year olds to play and others requiring you to have reach 18 years of age to play.

Odds of Winning

The odds of winning the Oz Lotto game are not as good as some other games, but they are much better than those of the American Powerball and Mega Millions games. Winning the jackpot means picking 7 correct numbers and the odds of doing that are one in 45,370,000 (by comparison, the odds of winning the jackpot in Powerball are one 135,000,000). For those odds however, the jackpots can be quite large, with the largest ever jackpot being a whopping AUS$106,500,000 (the Australian dollar is worth about 90 American cents as of June 2011, so that is a very significant amount of money). The basic jackpot in the Australian Oz Lotto game is AUS$1,000,000.