Saturday Lotto Events

Saturday Lotto is Australia's longest-running lottery and many special events have taken place in the decades that it has been active. The game has also gone through a number of updates since it began; learn how it has changed and find information about upcoming events on this page.

Upcoming Events

There are no upcoming changes planned for Saturday Lotto. Check this page at a later date to find out about the next event.

Previous Events

With regular Superdraws and Megadraws, Saturday Lotto continues to provide many exciting events. It has also seen many changes since it began in 1972. Find out more about previous events, starting with the most recent big developments:

The ticket price for the game was adjusted to help support the network costs of the lottery operator. This took the minimum cost for a 4-game entry up to $3.40, making it an increase of around 2%.

Saturday Lotto prizes underwent changes on 10 October 2020. The starting jackpot increased from $4 million to $5 million and the requirements for winning the Division 6 prize also changed. You previously had to match one or two numbers plus both supplementaries to win that prize, but under the updated rules you have to match three main numbers and no supplementary numbers.

This had a big effect on the odds for that particular prize and the overall odds. The Division 6 odds improved from 1 in 144 to 1 in 52 and the overall odds went from 1 in 86 to 1 in 42, making it much easier to win.

As part of the changes, the cost of entry increased from $0.65 to $0.75, plus retailer commission. The number matrix stayed the same, so you still pick 6 from 45.

The allocation of funds to the different prize divisions was updated, in order to create bigger jackpots. The percentage of the prize fund to be allocated to Division 1 increased from 28 percent to 30 percent. The money going to Division 6 decreased from 26.8 percent to 24.8 percent to account for the difference. The allocation of money to other divisions remained unchanged.

The price per game increased from $0.60 to $0.65 from draw 3443. Including the agent’s fee, this increased the cost of a 25-game entry for a single draw from $16.35 to $17.70, equating to roughly an 8% increase.

The Megadraw held at the end of 2011 holds the record for the most winning tickets in a single draw, when 2,887,794 lucky players won a dividend in draw 3177. Over 1.5 million players alone won in Division 6 for matching both the supplementary numbers (4 and 37) along with one or two of the main numbers, and 32 players won Division 1, taking home $968,750 each. As this was the first Megadraw that included the new Division 6 prize, it’s no surprise to see it had the most winners of any draw in Saturday Lotto history.

The Division 6 prize was added for draw 3081, giving players a dividend for matching both the supplementary numbers and either one or two of the main numbers.

Draw 2697 was a scheduled Superdraw that ended up giving out the highest dividends for Division 1 in Saturday Lotto history. Three players matched all six numbers and took home $7.3 million each.

The lowest Division 1 prize amount since before 1998 was paid out as 29 winners matched all six numbers and won $111,271.44 each in draw 2561. The winning numbers were 5-15-21-27-37-43 and it was very out of the ordinary for so many players to match all six numbers as the winning combination didn’t follow any discernible pattern.

The ball pool was increased from 40 to 45 and an additional supplementary ball was selected in each draw. This was in response to many Division 1 prizes being shared by a large number of players, and the changes were made to try and double the potential dividend and give winners “financial freedom”. This change made it significantly more difficult to win the Division 1 prize, altering the odds of winning the jackpot to 1 in 8,145,060, when previously it was 1 in 3,838,380.

Adding the extra supplementary ball also caused the removal of the Division 5 prize. Instead, players could match three numbers and either of the supplementary balls to win in Division 4.

To ease player unrest at the changes, Tattersalls offered a then Australian record jackpot of $6 million for the draw on 13 July 1985.

Saturday Lotto began its extensive history on 22 June 1972 and the first draw offered a Division 1 prize of $50,000. The lottery was first established by Tattersalls after the Victorian state government awarded them the right to conduct a weekly lottery to raise additional funds for the state’s health system. The Tattersall building was based on St Kila Road, Melbourne, and was full of hundreds of workers manually checking each ticket for winners. The game was originally based on lotteries from Europe, and was first established as six numbers and one supplementary number being drawn from a barrel of 40.

Over 50,000 tickets were sold for the very first draw, which caused the first Division 1 prize estimation to rise even higher to $90,000. The cost for the standard four game entry was just $1.00.