Lotto – prize worth tens of millions once more available after two-year hiatus

The number ‘5’ is Lady Luck’s favourite

A Lower Austrian has ranked first in the list of Austria’s highest Lotto winnings since November 2018 with almost 15 million euro. It’s actually the story of the seven-time rollover jackpot – and we haven’t (yet) reached that point. The reason why it is mentioned here is that the current six-time rollover jackpot has the potential to tie in with this story in more ways than one.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, when Thomas May starts the draw with 10 million euro, it will once more be about an amount running into the tens of millions for the first time in more than two years. And that in turn gives Lotto fans a chance of winning tens of millions. It would only be – after the record-breaking six matching numbers already mentioned – the second. This makes this seventh six-time rollover jackpot in Lotto history something special. Although three of his predecessors also caused a sensation with a prize exceeding 10 million euro, there were two winners twice and none at all once.

Austrian Lotteries is expecting more than 11 million picks on a good 2 million pick slips by the game closing time at 18:30 on Wednesday – and that would also be the highest figure in more than two years. Experience shows that these 11 million picks will cover 75 per cent of all possible (8,145,060) pick opportunities – although this doesn’t rule out a seven-time rollover jackpot, it makes the probability fairly low.

Nine winners from six provinces

After last year saw a Lower Austrian and an Upper Austrian win 7.7 million euro and 9.2 million euro respectively, six matching numbers picked by one person on Wednesday would be the third after a six-time rollover jackpot. Six matching numbers have been picked twice. A Lower Austrian and a Styrian shared the first ever six-time rollover jackpot in 2017, each winning 6.1 million euro, and two people from Vienna each won 5.1 million euro in 2018. On one occasion six matching numbers were picked three times when a player from Burgenland, one from Salzburg and one from Styria each won a good 3 million euro last year. And on another occasion – in 2018 – the six-time became a seven-time rollover jackpot.

Will the ‘5’ make it a sixth time?

Drawn seven times in the ten rounds this year – most recently five times in a row – the number 5 is Lady Luck’s clear favourite right now! This means that in tomorrow’s six-time rollover jackpot draw the number 5 has the chance of gaining a unique position, as never before in the almost 35-year history of Lotto, in all the 3,019 draws, has one number been drawn six times in a row (in addition to the 5, the numbers 4, 8, 13, 26, 29 and 39 have each been drawn five times in succession).

Even and low numbers have the edge

Six six-time rollover jackpots were played, which means that 36 numbers were drawn and it was found that 

• 22 even and 14 odd numbers were drawn, although there is one more odd number in the pick field;
• 20 were drawn from the lower half (1-22) and 14 from the upper (24-45); 23 came twice.

Quick pick very popular and successful with large jackpots

The question as to whether you are more likely to win with a quick pick, standard ticket or system ticket can be answered unequivocally, namely with: Any of the above. Rather than the type of pick it’s their number that’s important. The probability of six matching numbers with a single pick is about 1:8 million – a second pick alone will double the chance to 1:4 million. And so on.

In the case of large jackpots, experience has shown that the quick pick has the largest share of the total pick volume at 60 per cent (standard ticket 35 per cent, system ticket 5 per cent). And when it comes to six matching numbers, the dominance of the quick pick is even clearer! A quick pick produced seven of the nine six matching numbers after six-time rollover jackpots (a standard ticket and system ticket each produced one).

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