Playing foreign lotteries is not on every South African’s to do list. But with a bigger chance of winning, this might change. Between November 2018 and February 2019, UNISA’s Bureau of Market Research conducted a survey with 3000 random participants. They wanted to find out what are South African’s general feeling about participation in national and international lotteries.
Results from the survey showed that 63,9% of the participants think that their chances of winning foreign lotteries are either good or very good and only 23,2% of them thought that they have a good or very good chance of winning with SA lotteries.
With the French Lotto being one of the most popular international lotteries, we’ve compared some of the basic differences between the French Lotto and the SA PowerBall.
| French Lotto | SA PowerBall | |
| Amount of numbers to choose: | 5 numbers + 1 bonus number | 5 numbers + 1 PowerBall |
| Draw days: | Monday, Wednesday and Saturday | Tuesday and Friday |
| Chances of winning the Jackpot: | 1 in 19 068 840 | 1 in 42 375 200 |
| Odds of winning anything: | 1 in 6 | 1 in 36 |
| Latest Jackpot | €9million (approx. R149,8million) won on the 1st of February | R114 580 902.70 won on the 4th of February |
With the results from the French lottery drawn numbers from the first 18 draws this year, the French Lotto delivered 3 jackpot winners total amount of €20million (approx. R324million) and 31 second prize winners with a total pay-out of €2,9million (approx. R46.5million). And from the first 11 draws in 2020 the SA PowerBall delivered 1 jackpot winner with the amount of R114,580,902.70 and 35 second prize winners that paid out a total amount of R4,030,033.30.
From the information above, we can calculate that your chances of winning 1st prize with the French Lotto, is 45% bigger than winning the first prize with the SA PowerBall. And with the pay-out amounts shown above within just a few weeks, some South Africans might consider placing their bets on international lotteries as well.
