MegaSena

Mega Sena is South America’s biggest lottery draw, staged in Brazil and run by the country's Caixa Economica Federal bank. The Mega Sena Brazilian Lottery is drawn three times a week - every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evening.

Unlike many lottery draws, the Mega Sena isn’t played on one line of numbers on the lottery ticket. In fact the way the lottery is wagered on is more like betting, with the lottery tickets made up of permutations of numbers, covering many combinations.

When a draw is held, six numbers are selected at random from a range of 1 to 60. However, filling in the lottery ticket isn’t that simple.

When filling in the lottery ticket, you can bet within a range of six to 15 numbers, the more numbers you choose, the more permutations and the more your bet will cost. Mega Sena lottery tickets cost R$4.50 for each permutation, which means that choosing all permutations on 15 selections would cost you R$22,522.50. This expense makes it difficult for lottery players to afford all permutations on their lottery ticket but it does make the Mega Sena Lottery draw a firm favourite with worldwide lottery syndicates.

To win the Mega Sena lottery jackpot, you must match all six winning numbers to the numbers drawn in the Mega Sena Lottery draw. That is, one of the permutations on the lottery ticket must match all the winning balls.

While the Mega Sena may not hold any lottery record jackpots, the lottery does regularly pay out many millions on the lottery tickets and jackpots are known to be regularly high. Players with a winning lottery ticket must claim their lottery prize within 90 days. Odds of having a jackpot winning lottery ticket on the Mega Sena lottery are mathematically at around one in 50 million. However, like many lottery draws from around the world, smaller prizes are paid out for players matching from four numbers upwards.

Of the Mega Sena revenue from the sale of lottery tickets, 46% of revenue goes back into prizes, this is split between weekly prizes and cash that goes into a pot for regular Superdraws. Of the total going back into the prize fund, 35% makes up the Mega Sena lottery jackpot.

The remaining 54% of the sale of lottery tickets in Brazil goes to administration costs for the running of the lottery and to good causes, special social programmes around Brazil that benefit every time there is a lottery draw.

While the Mega Sena is one of the more complicated lottery draws in the world, it’s a firm favourite with players buying lottery tickets for syndicates, this is because of the way each lottery ticket is made up of permutations, something that can often increase your chance of a lottery win.

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