Lottery Results 101: Explaining the Basics
Most lottery players are familiar with the heightened anticipation that can come from checking their lottery results. It can be thrilling; is your life about to change to the tune of millions? Will you pocket a tidy lower-tier prize? Will you come up empty-handed?
While a lot of seasoned players have a good idea of how to interpret lottery results, not everybody knows exactly what they mean.
Today we’re going to explain how to make sense of lottery results.
What are Lottery Results?
There are three main parts to lottery results for each draw:
- The winning numbers from the draw
- The prizes that were won
- How many times each prize was won
The winning numbers determine which tickets in the draw will win a prize and which prize they win, for example, the jackpot prize, division 5 prize etc.
They also determine how many tickets in the draw will win a prize.
How are Lottery Results Determined?
For each draw, the winning numbers are selected at random. Most lotteries use a barrel system that mixes the lottery balls to allow random numbers to be selected. Others may user a computerised random number generator.
Once the winning numbers have been drawn, they are entered into a computerised system to calculate which tickets in the draw had numbers that matched the winning numbers. Any tickets in the draw that matched enough of the winning numbers will win a prize.
How can Lottery Results Tell You if You Won a Prize?
Let’s say you entered a USA Power Lotto draw and you selected the following numbers:
Now let’s say the following winning numbers were drawn:
To work out if you won any prizes, you could visit the USA Power Lotto page to see how many numbers your game needs to match to win each prize division.
In the above example, your game matched 3 of the main winning numbers (11, 24 and 46) and the Power Number (5).
As you can see, matching 3 numbers and the Power Number qualifies for a Division 5 win, as highlighted below:
You can also easily check the prize your winning entitles you to. In this case, you can see that a Division 5 will get you AUD$155.50, and it was won 2,237 times for the draw:
Common Lottery Results Terminology
There are some common terms that are helpful to understand:
Jackpot: Also knows as the “Division 1” prize. This is the main prize for a draw. In the case of our example, the USA Power Lotto, to win the jackpot you must pick all of the winning drawn numbers to win it.
Division: Refers to the different prize categories for a lottery. Divisions are based on the number of correctly matched numbers on your ticket, compared with the winning drawn numbers. Generally speaking, the lower the division number, the harder the division is to win and the greater the prize. For example, Division 1 is the hardest to win and has the highest prize. Division 5 is easier to win and has a lower prize.
Draw Date: This is the date that the draw takes place. At The Lottery Office, each of our lotteries has at least two draws each week.
Rollover: This is when the jackpot isn’t won by anybody for a draw. This means it “rolls over” to the next draw, meaning that it’s still available for the next draw. Rollovers usually results in the jackpot being offered being larger than it was in the previous draw.
Prize Pool: The total amount of prize money paid out to winners for a draw.
Can Lottery Results Be Used to Predict What Numbers Will Win in Future?
A lot of people believe that analysing winning number patterns can give information on what numbers will be drawn in future.
Unfortunately, this is false. If there was a way to successfully predict winning lottery numbers, we’d see lottery millionaires everywhere!
There is no way to predict which numbers are going to be drawn next.
This extends to the commonly held belief that “hot” (winning numbers that are drawn recently) and “cold” (numbers that are not drawn recently) can indicate what numbers could win in upcoming draws.
Winning numbers are selected randomly for each draw, and previously drawn numbers have no bearing on future outcomes.
We Do the Hard Work for Our Players
At The Lottery Office, we understand that many players love to check their lottery results for themselves. No problem! If this is you, simply visit our results pages.
For those that don’t have the time or simply don’t want to, we have you covered too.
We offer an email service to all our players to notify them of the results for each draw that they enter. We even automatically let you know if you’ve a prize or not!
You can also access your My Draws screen on our website or via the free Lottery Office app to see the results of any past draws.
Now you know all there is to know about lottery results! If you have any further questions, feel free to let us know at any time on our Contact Us page.
And if you’ve had any amazing lottery results moments, be sure to share it with us on our Facebook page.
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