This page introduces all lotteries covered by all the internet’s biggest lottery sites. We provide a basic overview of each lottery with information including the official ticket price, record jackpot, when drawings are held, what it takes to win, and the odds of winning the top prize. Each lottery overview also includes a list of lottery sites that allow you to play that lottery online.
Many lotteries are covered on this page, so we have organized it up into sections discussing specific types of lotteries. You can follow the on-page links to jump down to any section to read about those types of lotteries.
Note: ticket prices are official, as in what is charged by authorized retailers in the real world. These are not the prices you will pay online – lottery sites charge a premium for their service in most cases. My purpose in publishing the official price is for transparency so that you can see how much of a markup you’re paying and compare that across various lottery sites.
The Big Two: Powerball and Mega Millions
Powerball and Mega Millions stand alone as the world’s biggest lotteries by a long shot. In these games, $100 million jackpots are considered a matter of routine. These games have been known to generate jackpots over $1 billion, which is an obscene amount of money no matter where you live or what currency you use.
Spain’s El Gordo Christmas drawing is often cited as the world’s biggest lottery because it creates the world’s biggest prize fund. However, El Gordo de Navidad breaks up those prizes to many different winners. When it comes to pure jackpot power and your ability to win a big chunk of money that you get to keep all for yourself, nothing beats Powerball or Mega Millions.
US Powerball
Powerball consistently produces the world’s largest jackpots with a minimum top prize of $40 million, but a tendency to rise well above that number almost every time. Last year’s Powerball jackpots averaged a payout above $500 million.
Powerball set a new record when the jackpot topped $1.5 billion in 2016. That remains the single largest lottery jackpot of all time anywhere in the world. After intense ticket sales, three people ended up hitting the magic combination to split the pot three ways for about $533 million each. The largest Powerball jackpot ever won by a single ticket-holder happened in 2017 when a single winner claimed a $758.7 million jackpot.
Not surprisingly, every major lottery site offers Powerball tickets. These are the most popular tickets for lottery players around the world. You can buy Powerball tickets online at all of the best lottery sites.
| Powerball Basics | Play Powerball Online at: |
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Mega Millions
Mega Millions is the other big American lottery with jackpots that start at $40 million and only grow from there. This lottery also tends to grow to epic proportions with jackpots that regularly exceed $100 million.
In Mega Millions history, the single biggest jackpot exceeded $656 million during one drawing in 2012 – a record that stands to this day. Since Mega Millions launched in 2002, all ten of its biggest jackpots to date exceeded $300 million.
| Mega Millions Basics | Play Mega Millions Online at: |
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Multinational Lotteries
This section consists of three multinational lotteries that are played in multiple countries. Multinational lotteries create some of the biggest jackpots globally due to being so widely available to so many people.
EuroMillions
It would be fair to call EuroMillions Europe’s answer to America’s Powerball. This one often produces the largest jackpot in Europe with a top jackpot that starts at €17 million but can roll over to €190 million.
To date, the maximum possible jackpot of €190 million has been won three times while the 10 largest winners in EuroMillions history have all taken home at least €100 million. Tickets purchased in the UK also qualify for the Millionaire Maker special, which guarantees at least one player every week winning £1 million.
| EuroMillions Basics | Play EuroMillions Online at: |
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Eurojackpot
Eurojackpot can be considered the little brother of EuroMillions, but this lottery should not be overlooked. There is still a lot of money to be won in this drawing, and the odds of winning the top jackpot are much more favorable in comparison.
The first Eurojackpot drawing was held in 2012, and tickets are now sold all across Europe (and online). Jackpots for this lottery start at €10 million and reach as high as €90 million with a few rollovers.
| Eurojackpot Basics | Play Eurojackpot Online at: |
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Viking Lotto
As the name suggests, Viking Lotto is a multinational lottery with a strong presence in the Scandinavian region. Since its inception, this lottery has grown and is now sold in Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Slovenia. Jackpots have likewise grown considerably with the addition of more countries and more people playing.
Viking Lotto jackpots start with a guaranteed minimum of €3 million and reach as high as €35 million if enough rollovers are achieved. If the top jackpot exceeds €35 million, the difference is added to the next prize level. Big payouts in the past have ranged from €6.8 million to €30.9 million. According to TheLotter, the average jackpot paid by Viking Lotto is around €3 million.
| Viking Lotto Basics | Play Viking Lotto Online at: |
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National Lotteries
Most of the world’s big lotteries are organized at the national level. That means these lottos are managed by an operator authorized to sell tickets and advertise across the entire country. National lotteries in large and prosperous countries can create some extremely high-paying jackpots, as you will see below.
Australian Monday Lotto
The Australian Monday Lotto is a simple but rewarding weekly lottery that guarantees a $1 million prize for up to four winners every week. Each game costs just A$1, and that means you can spend a dollar a week for a chance to become a millionaire. Reasonable odds, simple gameplay, and generous prizes all make this a nice little weekly drawing.
In this game, you pick six numbers from 1-45 plus 2 supplementary numbers from the same pool. You win the top prize and A$1 million if you match all six of your main numbers. The supplementary numbers are used to award prizes in the 2nd, 5th, and 6th divisions.
| Australian Monday Lotto Basics | Play the Monday Lotto Online at: |
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Australian Saturday Lotto
To clear up any confusion, the Australian Saturday Lotto is known by one of several names depending on where you’re located. This drawing is sometimes called the “Saturday Lotto,” “TattsLotto,” “Gold Lotto,” or “X Lotto.” Whatever you call it, this lottery is drawn every Saturday and guarantees a minimum prize of A$4 million with jackpots that can roll over if anyone wins.
Rollovers are somewhat infrequent as someone tends to win the top prize in most drawings, so you will not often see huge jackpots as you might with other major national drawings. However, the odds of winning are very reasonable – 114 millionaires were created by the Saturday Lotto last year alone. That’s not a bad number considering the drawing is held just once a week.
The Saturday Lotto also hosts super draws a few times a year that jack the top prize up way higher than normal. These special jackpots often exceed A$20 to A$30 million.
| Saturday Lotto Basics | Play the Saturday Lotto Online at: |
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Australian Wednesday Lotto
The Australian Wednesday Lotto is a perfect replica of the Monday Lotto, except this one takes place every Wednesday. Just like the Monday Lotto, the Wednesday Lotto awards up to $1 million to each of four jackpot winners each week. This one also costs $1, and the odds of winning are the same.
The only difference between the Wednesday and Monday Lotto is the day they occur, but these drawings are not actually connected – there are no rollovers, and every prize is fixed.
| Australian Wednesday Lotto Basics | Play the Wednesday Lotto Online at: |
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Austrian Lottery – Lotto 6 aus 45
Lotto 6aus45 is Austria’s most successful lottery drawing with billions of ticket sales and more than €31 billion in prizes awarded since it was established in 1986. To date, Lotto 6aus45 has created more than 850 millionaires. The biggest win in Austrian Lotto history happened in 2015 when one lucky player took home a €9.6 million jackpot.
The Austrian Lotto can best be described as a small-to-medium lottery with frequent drawings and frequent wins. This one does not build up massive jackpots like EuroMillions, but it does offer odds that are more than 15 times greater than EuroMillions when it comes to winning the top prize.
| Austrian Lotto 6 aus 49 Basics | Play Lotto 6 aus 49 Online at: |
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Brazil Dupla Sena
Dupla Sena plays the role of the little brother to Brazil’s other big lottery, Mega Sena. Dupla Sena offers smaller jackpots but is also cheaper and offers significantly more attractive odds. While the odds of winning the top prize in Mega Sena are about 1 in 50 million, the odds of winning the jackpot in Dupla Sena are about 1 in 15 million.
What also makes Dupla Sena attractive is the structure which gives every player two chances to win. The Dupla Sena lottery draws two different sets of numbers in each drawing and enters your picks into each. This serves to increase the odds and make payouts more likely for everyone.
| Dupla Sena Basics | Play Dupla Sena Online at: |
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Brazil Quina
The Quina lotto serves as a smaller but more frequent lottery than Brazil’s bigger Mega Sena and Dupla Sena. While the other lotteries have bigger jackpots on offer, this one is attractive because it is drawn six times a week and still offers substantial payouts for those lucky enough to guess the five winning numbers.
Official Quina lottery tickets cost R$ 1.50, and up to five lines may be submitted for each purchase. When you play Quina online, you will be asked to pick five numbers ranging from 1-80. If all five-match, you stand to win a minimum of R$ 400,000. With rollovers possible six days a week and no cap on the max jackpot, the top prize in this lotto tends to grow very quickly. The highest jackpot recorded to date was worth R$ 10 million (about €2.6 million according to exchange rates at the time of this writing).
| Quina Lotto Basics | Play Quina Lotto Online at: |
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Canada Lotto 6/49
Lotto 6/49 is one of Canada’s major national lotteries and holds the proud record of paying out the largest ever jackpot in Canadian lottery history, a CAD$64 million jackpot paid out in 2015. The main jackpot starts at CAD$5 million and grows from there. Additionally, Lotto 6/49 awards a CAD$1 million jackpot in every single drawing. That means two new millionaires are created every week courtesy of Lotto 6/49.
Canada’s other major lottery, Lotto Max, has reached even higher levels, with a total prize pool reaching as high as CAD$102 million. Still, the individual jackpot in that lottery maxes out at CAD$60 million. Thus, Lotto 6/49 remains the Canadian lottery capable of paying the most to any one player. Big jackpots plus a million-dollar prize paid for every draw make this a lottery worth considering wherever you live.
| Lotto 6/49 Basics | Play Lotto 6/49 Online at: |
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Colombian Baloto
Colombia’s national lottery has been estimated to attract at least 450,000 players per drawing as a base, with even more players drawn to the game when jackpots grow large. And grow large, they do. After updating the lottery structure in 2017, the starting jackpot has been doubled from COP 2 billion to COP 4 billion. In euro terms, that means the new jackpot begins at about €1.1 million.
Other changes to Baloto in 2017 included a reorganization of the prize structure such that the top jackpot is now more difficult to win, but it is now easier to win any prize at all. Previously, players had a probability of 1 in 34 to win a prize. Now, players have a probability of 1 in 14 to win. The price of tickets was also reduced from COP 6000 to COP 5700 (about €1.6).
The record jackpot to date clocks in at COP 117 billion, or about €33.5 million, based on exchange rates when we wrote this page. However, we anticipate seeing new record jackpots under the new Baloto prize structure.
| Baloto Basics | Play Baloto Online at: |
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El Gordo – Spanish Christmas Lottery
The Spanish Christmas Lottery (a.k.a. El Gordo de Navidad or Sorteo Extraordinario de Navidad) is the biggest in the world. Technically, it’s actually a raffle because every prize, from the bottom all the way up to the very top “El Gordo” first prize, is guaranteed to be awarded to someone.
Each year on 22 December, El Gordo is drawn, and an entire country watches as more than €2.3 billion in prizes are announced. El Gordo is different from most lotteries because it does not award a single major prize to just one winning combination. Instead, El Gordo pays thousands of prizes, including 165 winning tickets that each pay a €4 million top prize.
So, despite the impressive prize pool, the actual amount won by individual players is not what makes the Spanish Christmas Lottery so special. What makes it special are the ridiculously favorable odds.
If you browse other lotteries detailed on this page, you see odds of winning that range from 1 in 8 million for smaller lotteries to as high as 1 in 600 million for SuperEnalotto. Compare this to El Gordo de Navidad: the odds of winning the top prize are 1 in 100,000. The odds of winning anything at all are 1 in 7. It only happens once a year, so I suggest giving this one a try if you ever get a chance.
| El Gordo de Navidad Basics | Play El Gordo de Navidad Online at: |
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El Gordo de la Primitiva
El Gordo de la Primitiva is one of Spain’s biggest regular lotteries that offers the best of two worlds: cheap tickets and large prizes. Official tickets can be had for €1.50, while minimum jackpots start at €5 million and roll up from there. El Gordo de la Primitiva hit its record jackpot in 2011 with a top prize of more than €33 million. Additionally, all of this lottery’s ten-biggest jackpots of all time have exceeded €20 million.
To clear up any confusion, El Gordo de la Primitiva is not the big Christmas lottery raffle that many people are referring to when they say “El Gordo.” The Christmas draw is the one with the €2-€3 billion prize pool you hear about every year, and we will discuss that one next. El Gordo de la Primitiva is a regular, weekly drawing that runs all year long.
| El Gordo de la Primitiva Basics | Play El Gordo de la Primitiva Online at: |
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El Gordo de Verano
El Gordo de Verano is Spain’s big annual summer edition run in much the same style as their world-famous El Gordo de Navidad. The Spanish summer raffle guarantees something in the range of €140 million each year and offers some of the best odds in the world when it comes to jackpot-level prizes.
Individual jackpots top out at €2 million each year in this drawing, and the odds of winning the jackpot are an incredible 1 in 100,000. A full ticket purchased in Spain will set you back a considerable amount as tickets cost €200, but they are also sold in “decimos” at €20. A full ticket gives you a chance to win one of the ten €2 million top prizes while a decimo will get you €200,000. Either way, the odds are great, and 1 in 3 tickets contains a cash prize.
| El Gordo de Verano Basics | Play El Gordo de Verano Online at: |
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El Niño – Loteria del Niño
Spain’s El Niño is an annual raffle-style drawing with massive prizes that nearly match those offered by El Gordo de Navidad. This one takes place every year just a couple of weeks after El Gordo de Navidad and is run similarly: raffle tickets are printed ahead of time, and every prize is guaranteed to be awarded to someone.
This one runs every January and offers players a chance to start the new year off on a very positive start with a total prize pool of over €600 million. In the latest El Niño drawing, fifty €2 million prizes were awarded, and thousands of other prizes spread across 17 prize tiers.
Like the Spanish Christmas raffle, El Niño offers some of the best odds in the business. The odds of winning a €2 million top prize are just 1 in 100,000, which is incredible when you consider most other jackpots of this size boast odds that are measured in the tens-of-millions or even hundreds-of-millions. The odds of winning any prize in El Niño are just as impressive at 1 in 3.
| El Niño Basics | Play El Niño Online at: |
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EuroMillions UK
EuroMillions tickets purchased in the UK give you the normal EuroMillions experience but a bonus: entry to the twice-weekly UK Millionaire Maker raffle. Every EuroMillions UK ticket gives you two chances to win between the regular EuroMillions prize of at least €17 million and the £1 million Millionaire Maker raffle.
As far as cost and winning go, everything is the same for the main EuroMillions jackpot, as you can see in the chart below. The odds of winning the Millionaire Maker raffle vary each week because the lottery guarantees two winners of the £1 million raffle in every drawing. Therefore, the odds of winning vary depending on how many people have entered that week’s drawing.
| EuroMillions UK Basics | Play EuroMillions UK Online at: |
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French Loto
The French Loto tends to pay out medium-sized jackpots relative to other European lotteries, but with 3 drawings a week and a high frequency of smaller prizes, it is still worth a look. The odds of winning the top jackpot are also quite a bit better than the vast majority of other major lotteries.
Each drawing begins with a minimum guaranteed jackpot of €2 million and grows by €1 million every draw that goes by without a winner. With 3 drawings a week, the jackpots to this one can grow fairly quickly before a winner is declared. However, the generous odds help to avoid the French Loto going too long without a winner. The jackpot frequently breaches €10 million before being hit, but it has so far “only” maxed out at €24 million.
| French Loto Basics | Play French Loto Online at: |
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German Keno
Germany’s biggest keno game takes place every day with fixed prize levels and a top jackpot of €1 million on offer. Players pick anywhere from 2 to 10 numbers, and then the lottery draws 20 numbers. To win the top jackpot, you’ll need to pick 10 numbers and see them all matched by the numbers drawn by the lotto organizers.
The minimum stake starts at €1, but you’re free to play €2, €5 or €10 to see all prizes increased by 2x, 5x or 10x accordingly. If you pick at least 8 numbers, German Keno offers a unique prize level: if you match none of your numbers, they’ll return 75% of your stake. Even bad luck pays in German keno.
The top jackpot of €1 million is only paid if you bet the maximum amount and pick ten numbers. The odds of hitting the top prize when you pick 10 numbers are about 1 in 2 million.
| German Keno Basics | Play German Keno Online at: |
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German Lottery – Lotto 6aus49
Germany’s Lotto 6aus49 is one of Europe’s larger national lotteries with large jackpots, ten prize tiers and three bonus games all rolled up into one ticket. Jackpots in Lotto 6aus49 start at €1 million on Wednesday drawings, €3 million on Saturday drawings, and roll up every time there isn’t a winner. The average top prize exceeds €5 million, but the jackpot can go much, much higher.
Lotto 6aus49 has paid jackpots as high as €43.3 million and €37.7 million over the years, in addition to paying out millions of smaller prizes to players. Many prize tiers and frequent drawings make this a solid choice for players who like a lot of action. Even if you don’t win the top prize, there are enough secondary prizes spread across the two drawings every week that Lotto 6aus49 is a good fit for those who like a lot of action.
| Lotto 6aus49 Basics | Play Lotto 6aus49 Tickets at: |
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Hong Kong MK6
The Hong Kong Jockey Club runs the Mark 6 lottery three times a week with jackpot prizes starting at HK$8 million but often progressing well beyond that amount with rollovers. Occasionally, the Hong Kong MK 6 jackpot exceeds HK$100 million before a winner hits the jackpot.
In 2011, the Hong Kong Mark 6 lottery set a record jackpot of HK$133.5 million after numerous rollovers. That translates to more than €14 million, according to current exchange rates. With ticket prices set at HK$10 (just over €1), this lottery offers substantial value relative to its cost.
| Hong Kong MK6 Basics | Play Hong Kong MK 6 Online at: |
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Hungarian Hatoslotto
Hatoslotto is a Hungarian lottery organized in the 6/45 structure. That is, you make six picks between 1 and 45 and win the top jackpot if all six of your numbers match. Hatoslotto was established in 1988 as a 5+1 game but then changed to the current 6/45 structure in 2007.
Jackpots in Hatoslotto are paid out in Hungarian forint and therefore translate into small-to-medium sized prizes in Euros. According to Lottoszamok.net, the highest Hatoslotto jackpot ever paid was HUF 1.56 billion. In euros, this translates to roughly €5,000,000.
| Hatoslotto Basics | Play Hatoslotto Online at: |
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Hungarian Otoslotto
Otoslotto is Hungary’s other major lottery with even bigger jackpots as a 5-of-90 game that pays out jackpots as large as HUF 5 billion. In euros, that works out to about €16 million. If the smaller jackpots paid out by Hatoslotto don’t do the trick for you, Otoslotto is the other Hungarian lottery for you.
Drawings are held once a week on Saturdays, and it costs HUF 250 to play. At current exchange rates, that works out to less than 1 euro. The only drawback in this lottery compared to Hatoslotto is this one will take much more luck to win the top jackpot.
| Otoslotto Basics | Plays Otoslotto Online at: |
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Irish Lottery
The Irish Lotto is Ireland’s national game, with drawings held twice a week and some of the best odds in the world. In fact, the Irish Lotto may actually offer the best value of any drawing when comparing jackpot size to odds of winning. However, ticket prices are almost twice as high as most other European lotteries, with a minimum ticket purchase of €4 for two Play Panels.
Each drawing begins with a guaranteed minimum jackpot of €2 million and a jackpot cap of €18.69 million. If the jackpot exceeds that amount, money will begin being awarded to the next lowest prize level for winners. These rules prevent the Irish Lotto jackpot from becoming as large as some other big drawings, but the odds of winning far exceed other national lotteries.
| Irish Lotto Basics | Play Irish Lotto Tickets at: |
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Italian SuperStar Lottery
The Italian SuperStar is an add-on option connected to Italy’s SuperEnalotto. When you activate the SuperStar option, you pay an additional fee and choose an additional number from 1-90 to go along with the other six numbers between 1-90 that you pick for SuperEnalotto. Doing so qualifies you for bonus prizes on top of the regular jackpots, boosts your secondary prizes by up to 100x, and adds prize divisions not available in regular SuperEnalotto.
The SuperStar option adds €2 million to the regular SuperEnalotto jackpot, €1 million extra to the second-place prize, and boosts other prize levels by up to 100 times their normal payouts. It also adds eight additional prize divisions so that if you match the bonus number, you receive a prize of some sort no matter how many numbers you miss or match in the main drawing.
| SuperStar Basics | Play SuperStar Online at: |
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La Primitiva
Spain’s La Primitiva lives up to its name (the name is Spanish for “primitive” or “early/original”) as the oldest lottery still running today, more than 250 years after its founding. More importantly for us, La Primitiva also creates some of the biggest jackpots in Europe thanks to no jackpot caps and frequent rollovers.
Each lottery begins with a minimum jackpot of €2 million and grows rapidly as drawings go by without a winner. This twice-weekly lottery is one of the few in Europe to breach the magical €100 million number. In 2015, La Primitiva set records when the jackpot exceeded €101 million before being won.
| La Primitiva Basics | Play La Primitiva Online at: |
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Mega Sena
Mega Sena is Brazil’s big national lottery with guaranteed jackpots that start a minimum of R$1.1 million but can grow to reach R$200 million. Mega Sena also holds a special drawing every New Year’s Eve with substantially larger jackpots than normal. This one is prevalent and tends to rise above R$200 million.
Drawings are held twice a week on Wednesday and Saturday evenings, with a live telecast showing the numbers being drawn. Although Mega Sena does not quite reach the massive jackpots that we see with Powerball or EuroMillions, the attractive odds make this a popular lottery among players worldwide.
| Mega Sena Basics | Play Mega Sena Online at: |
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Mexican Melate
Melate is a big lottery held in Mexico twice a week with a minimum guaranteed jackpot of MXN 30 million and the ability to roll over and over to build jackpots as much as 20 times bigger than they began.
This lottery is fairly inexpensive at MXN 15, which works out to less than one US dollar at the time of this writing. However, the jackpots have exceeded MXN 639 million, which translates to roughly USD 34 million. The game rules are simple: pick 6 numbers between 1 and 56 and then wait for the next drawing. There are 9 prize levels in total, with the top jackpot paying if you match all six.
| Melate Lottery Basics | Play Melate Online at: |
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Mexican Melate Retro
The Mexican Melate Retro lottery is a throwback to the old Melate, originally structured to have players choose six numbers from 1-39. When the original Melate changed to draw from 49 balls, the odds of winning were greatly reduced, but jackpots grew much larger. Melate Retro functions in the older fashion with smaller jackpots but better odds for the players.
Melate Retro is drawn twice a week, and each jackpot starts with at least MXN 5 million. In each drawing, six balls numbered 1-39 are drawn along with an additional bonus ball. Players win by matching all six of the main numbers while the bonus ball is used for the 2nd, 6th, and 7th prize tiers.
| Melate Retro Lottery Basics | Play Melate Retro Online at: |
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New Zealand Powerball
The New Zealand Powerball drawing is played as an optional add-on to the regular New Zealand lottery. Thus, to participate in this one, you must first purchase a regular New Zealand Lotto drawing ticket.
Every drawing begins with a minimum jackpot of NZ$4 million, but jackpots roll over often enough to boost prizes well about that level. According to NZ Lotto statistics, the average jackpot tops NZ$11 million before being won. Top jackpots are allowed to reach as high as NZ$50 million before the whole amount is awarded to the next highest prize division for which there are winners.
Ticket prizes for the New Zealand Powerball are just $0.80 per line, but the actual cost is greater because you must buy a regular Lotto ticket first, and there is a 4-line minimum for both.
Regular Lotto tickets cost NZ$0.70 per line with a 4-line minimum to cost NZ$2.80. Powerball lines cost NZ$0.80 with a 4-line minimum as well for an additional NZ$3.2. In total, the least amount you can spend is NZ$6.00 to play 4 regular lotto lines and 4 Powerball lines.
| New Zealand Powerball Basics | Play New Zealand Powerball Online at: |
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Oz Lotto
Oz Lotto creates the biggest lottery jackpots in Australia, with a guaranteed minimum jackpot of A$2 million for every drawing. Frequent rollovers quickly push this lottery to extreme heights, encouraging more ticket purchases throughout the country, boosting the lottery even higher.
The record Oz Lotto payout to date topped A$111 million during a drawing held back in 2012. Low ticket prices combined with rapidly rising jackpots and generous odds make this one a wise choice for players worldwide.
| Oz Lotto Basics | Play Oz Lotto Online at: |
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Oz Powerball
Oz Powerball is Australia’s answer to US Powerball but with smaller prizes and better odds. This one actually starts with a higher minimum jackpot than the regular Oz Lotto, but Oz Lotto still holds the record jackpot to date. However, Oz Powerball has all the ingredients it needs to challenge that record one day.
The weekly drawing guarantees a minimum payout of A$3 million. That means every week, and you have a chance to win at least A$3 million. Frequent rollovers push this one much higher than that regularly and have resulted in the top prize reaching as high as A$80 million.
| Oz Powerball Basics | Play Oz Powerball Online at: |
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Polish Lotto
The Polish Lotto is one of Europe’s best values, with ticket prices costing just PLN 3 (about €0.70) and jackpots that start at a minimum of PLN 2 million (about €475,000). When you play the Polish Lotto, you also have a choice to activate the Plus feature for an additional PLN 1 (about €0.25). Doing so enters you into an additional chance to win a separate prize of PLN 1 million.
With three drawings a week and rollovers being quite common, this lottery can grow to substantial heights in short order. In 2016, the Polish Lotto hit its biggest ever jackpot when it paid out a top prize of PLN 57.8 million (about €13.7 million).
| Polish Lotto Basics | Play the Polish Lotto Online at: |
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Polish MINI Lotto
Poland’s MINI Lotto lives up to its name as an inexpensive, frequent lottery game with smaller jackpots. Entries cost the equivalent of €0.30, and prizes have topped at around the €87,000 mark by current exchange rates.
Even though the jackpots here are smaller than some other lotteries, MINI Lotto does have three key advantages: cheap tickets, frequent drawings, and favorable odds. This lottery is worth considering if you like lots of action but don’t like to spend lots of money.
| MINI Lotto Basics | Play MINI Lotto Online at: |
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Polish Multi Keno
Poland’s Multi Keno, known as “Multi Multi” to locals, is a traditional keno-style game run in Poland twice a day with jackpots as high as PLN 25 million. In euros, that’s nearly €6 million depending on the current exchange rate.
Multi Keno works by choosing up to 10 numbers from 1-80, and the system draws 20 numbers at random from 1-80. The more numbers you pick, the more you win if you match them all. Multi Keno also pays a variety of prizes for matching some but not all of your numbers.
Multi Keno entries start as low as PLN 2.5 (about €0.60) and can be placed for as much as PLN 25 (about €6). Betting larger amounts results in your potential payouts all growing by the same multiple. For example, a PLN 2.5 bet can return to PLN 250,000, while a PLN 25 bet can return up to PLN 2,500,000.
If you want to go for the biggest payout possible, you can activate the Plus feature to enhance all payouts. Choosing this option doubles your bet amount but also results in much larger prizes. Activating the Plus option with a PLN 2.5 bet will result in your total bet costing PLN 5, but your maximum possible payout increasing from PLN 250,000 to 2,500,000. Likewise, the Plus feature activates the biggest jackpot of all when combined with the maximum bet – PLN 50 can return up to PLN 25,000,000.
| Multi Keno Basics | Play Multi Keno Online at: |
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Romanian Lotto 6/49
The Romanian national lottery was formed in 1906 and has undergone significant changes over the ensuing years. Today’s biggest game is Lotto 6/49, which, as the name suggests, has players pick six numbers between 1 and 49. If all six-match, you win the top prize.
This is one of the smaller lotteries in the European region, but TheLotter often features it on their “Smart List,” which recommends lotteries based on a cost-to-benefit ratio. The jackpots are smaller than some other national lotteries, but the odds of winning and ticket prices make this a great value bet for budget-minded lotto players.
Top jackpots in this lottery are often worth a few million euros (converted from RON), although sometimes even bigger jackpots can be paid. According to local media, the two highest jackpots ever pad in the Romanian lotto were worth €11 million and €12.45 million. That report is quite dated by now, so it is possible to even larger jackpots have been won since.
| Romanian Lotto 6/49 Basics | Play Romanian Lotto Online at: |
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South African Lottery
The South Africa Lotto guarantees a starting jackpot of R2 million, but twice-weekly drawings and frequent rollovers have been known to push the jackpot more than 25 times its starting point.
The largest recorded jackpot to date topped out at R57 million back in 2013. In today’s euros, that would be about €3.5 million. These are not the biggest jackpots in euros or GBP, but with ticket prices of R5, South Africa Lotto is an expensive option. Ticket prices work out to about €0.30 at current (as of this writing) exchange rates.
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South Africa Powerball
If South Africa Lotto’s jackpots aren’t big enough to really catch your interest, South Africa Powerball may be more suitable. This lottery was launched in 2009 and has become the biggest in South Africa, with jackpots starting at R3 million and often rolling over to create massive top prizes.
For reference, the biggest South Africa Powerball jackpot to date topped out at over R 100 million back in 2011. The game structure is similar to the even-larger US Powerball, except for fewer numbers to choose from, and the odds are much better. Perhaps the biggest selling point for South African lottery players is that this one costs the same amount as the Lotto but comes with a bigger starting jackpot and even bigger maximum jackpots.
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Spanish BonoLoto
Spain’s BonoLoto is an action junkie’s dream with tickets sold six days a week, and drawings held four times a week, a starting jackpot of around €400,000, and just enough rollovers to bring the prize up into the millions on a fairly frequent basis. It is not uncommon to go two or three drawings without a winner, but BonoLoto does indeed create several winners a week on average.
BonoLoto has gotten so popular that record jackpots are hard to hit these days with so many people playing and winning before it can roll over more than a few times. The current record stood at about €7 million and was set way back in 1990. Even so, there is good money to be won here, and drawings happen every day but Sunday.
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SuperEnalotto
Italy’s SuperEnalotto is not for the faint of heart as it combines some of the world’s biggest jackpots with some of the world’s worst odds. This is a classic high-risk, high-reward lottery with drawings held three times a week. The frequency of drawings helps produce winners more often while making this lottery attractive because you’re never far from the next drawing.
Those frequent drawings also result in frequent rollovers, which in turn result in jackpots that grow quickly. To date, the largest jackpot ever paid out by SuperEnalotto was €177.8 million. This record could very well be broken one day as SuperEnalotto does not place a cap on the maximum jackpot or number of rollovers permitted.
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Swedish Lotto
The Swedish lottery works a bit differently than most national lotteries. It draws seven numbers from a pool of 35 and four bonus numbers to determine the secondary prize winner. That’s not all – the Swedish Lotto draws 2 sets of numbers in every drawing, so you end up getting two chances to win with every entry.
With two sets of winning numbers drawn in every draw, Swedish Lotto odds are kept reasonable despite seven balls to match. You can also participate in an optional “Extra Game” to have seven randomly selected numbers from 0-9 entered into a random drawing of seven numbers 0-9 for a chance to win even more.
The biggest recorded Swedish Lotto jackpot to date was for SEK 144 million back in 2005. In today’s euros, that prize would be worth more than €14 million.
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Swiss Lottery
The Swiss Lotto went live in 1970 and produced jackpots that far outpace what one would expect, given Switzerland’s population of just over 8 million people. Record jackpots above CHF 70 million, CHF 40 million and make this lottery comparable to the national lotteries of much larger countries. To date, the Swiss Lotto has minted more than 830 new millionaires.
Swiss Lotto jackpots start at CHF 1.5 million, but historical results show how capable it is of reaching very high amounts. Each pick costs CHF 2.50, but the lottery requires a 2-pick minimum, so your minimum outlay for each round is CHF 5.00.
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UK Lotto
The UK Lotto is one of the biggest, longest-running, and most popular lotteries in the world. The first drawing was held in 1994, and since then, the lottery has created thousands of new millionaires.
Two drawings are held each week, and each drawing has a minimum guaranteed jackpot. The Wednesday jackpot must always be at least £2.5 million, while the Saturday jackpot must always be £5 million. In other words, you have two chances to become a millionaire every week with the UK Lotto.
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UK Thunderball
UK Thunderball is a fast-moving, high-frequency game with mid-sized jackpots and excellent odds for the players. This game runs three times a week and hands out millions in prizes every week, capped off by a guaranteed top jackpot of £500,000. If you’re into subscriptions, UK Thunderball is worth considering with it having such generous odds and frequent drawings.
With top jackpot odds of roughly 1 in 8 million, UK Thunderball has some of the best odds among all major lotteries. The only other major drawing that comes close is Ireland’s national lottery, with about 1 in 10 million odds. In addition to the top prize every week, Thunderball has eight other prize levels with payouts ranging from £3 to £5,000.
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Ukrainian Megalot
Megalot is Ukraine’s other major lottery that operates alongside Super Loto with drawings held on Wednesdays and Saturdays and jackpots capable of reaching UAH 15 million (about €467,000). This one offers similar pay potential to the Ukrainian Super Loto but costs less at just UAH 5 (about €0.16).
While Megalot is cheaper to play, the odds are also longer, with players having a 1 in 52.4 million chance to win. There are eight prize tiers in total, with the odds of winning the lowest prize tier set at about 1 in 40.
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Ukrainian Super Loto
Super Loto is run by Ukraine’s national lottery organizer and is responsible for creating new millionaires regularly. The jackpots in this one are relatively small by international standards, but then again, so are ticket prices. Super Loto has some of the most inexpensive tickets globally at UAH 8 (about €0.25).
Jackpots start at UAH 3 million (about €93,000) and rollover until a winner is declared. The top prize has been known to exceed UAH 15.2 million (about €474,000). Cheap tickets and twice-weekly drawings make this one a nice little regular gamble for players not interested in spending a lot of money.
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USA State and Canadian Province Lotteries
Most individual states in the US host their own lotteries that are run independently of the major national drawings. State-level and provincial-level lotteries should not be underestimated because the US and Canada are both such populous and prosperous nations that even lotteries at the state level can produce jackpots that rival some of the world’s major international lotteries.
That being said, some state-level and provincial lotteries are smaller than the average international level. Even these smaller lotteries have their advantages, however. They tend to be cheaper and have significantly better odds than their bigger competitors overseas.
California Fantasy 5
California Fantasy 5 is a game for action players that features mid-sized jackpots, very generous winning odds, and daily drawings. With many things going for it, California Fantasy 5 is always worth considering – especially for lotto players on a budget.
Official tickets cost $1 in California and offer a 1 in 9 chance to win anything at all. The top jackpot starts at $75,000 and rolls over every day after each drawing until someone wins. Jackpots can grow quickly and have been known to exceed $700,000. The odds of winning the jackpot amount are among the best in the world at 1 in 575,757.
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California SuperLotto Plus
California SuperLotto Plus is just a state-level lottery, but don’t let that little fact cause you to overlook what is actually a monster drawing. California is the most populous state in the US and has an economy equal to that of France. Thus, the California SuperLotto Plus is home to some of the biggest jackpots in the world.
Each California SuperLotto Plus drawing starts with a minimum jackpot of $7 million and can roll over to create jackpots as high as $193 million. This is more than enough to rival some of the world’s biggest national lotteries. The best part of all: an official ticket purchased in California will set you back just $1.
| California SuperLotto Plus Basics | Play California SuperLotto Plus Online at: |
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Cash4Life
Cash4Life is a tempting, US-based lottery that offers unique prizes which guarantee a lifetime income in each of its twice-weekly drawings. Winning the jackpot in any drawing will set you up for life with $1,000 a day for the next 20 years, while the second-place prize will give you $1,000 a week for the next 20 years.
Winners can also opt for a lump-sum payout of $7 million instead of the $1,000/day payout and $1 million in place of the $1,000/week option. Cash4Life does not pay the biggest jackpots, but the unique prize structure does show how much money $7 million really is when you imagine being paid $1,000 a day for 20 years.
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New Jersey Cash 5 XTRA
New Jersey’s Cash 5 is a popular, mid-sized lottery that has many good things going for it. Tickets cost just $1, and jackpots start at $75,000 but grow very quickly because drawings are held seven days a week. However, the odds are favorable enough that people win this one fairly often to prevent it from growing too large.
Looking back at past results, jackpots in the range of $150,000 to $400,000 tend to occur every few days, along with the occasional jackpot in the range of $700,000 to $800,000. Every once in a while, a truly monster jackpot has a chance to grow and spit out significantly more. The record New Jersey Cash 5 jackpot to date stands at $1.8 million.
The XTRA feature can be activated at the cost of $1 per entry to the two non-jackpot prizes by 2x to 5x and add a prize tier that pays $2 for matching 2 of 5 numbers.
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New Jersey Pick 6 XTRA
Pick 6 XTRA is New Jersey’s bigger lottery with jackpots that start at $2 million and grow from there every drawing. The odds of winning are quite a bit longer than New Jersey’s other lottery, but the prizes here are significantly larger. The starting Pick 6 XTRA jackpot is bigger than the highest-ever Cash 5 jackpot.
New Jersey Pick 6 XTRA tickets cost $1 and give the player odds of 1 in about 14 million to win the jackpot prize. The odds of winning anything in the base game are 1 in 54, but you can increase those odds to 1 in 7 by activating the XTRA feature for $1. If you activate the XTRA feature, all non-jackpot prizes are multiplied by 2x to 5x, and a $2 fixed prize is added for matching two numbers.
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New York Lotto
Home to some 20 million people, New York state is plenty capable of producing worthwhile jackpots in its state lottery. The New York Lotto delivers hefty payouts regularly with jackpots that start at $2 million and increase by $300,000 every drawing.
The biggest selling point of the New York Lotto is surely its favorable cost-to-jackpot ratio. Each play costs just $0.50, but you must play at least 2 lines so that this one will set you back $1 at a minimum. Despite these inexpensive tickets, the jackpot is known to grow to considerable levels. The biggest New York Lotto jackpot recorded was a jackpot worth $65 million in 2007.
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New York Take 5
New York Take 5 is a smaller, inexpensive, and frequent lottery drawing that offers players great odds of winning than the vast majority of lotteries out there. Take 5 tickets to cost $1 and give you a roughly 1 in 500,000 chance to take home a top prize payout that averages about $58,000. Prizes in the range of $30,000 to $80,000 are very common in this game.
The recurring theme with these smaller but more frequent state-level drawings is they all offer players a chance to get in on the action, often at a reasonable cost and with odds that are significantly better than bigger lotteries. Likewise, lottos such as Take 5 are great candidates for subscription play online and in the real world.
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Ontario 49
Ontario 49 is a simple and inexpensive lottery that runs twice a week with a fixed jackpot every time of CAD$2 million. Maximum payouts are somewhat limited as this jackpot never changes. Still, the odds are pretty decent, draws happen twice a week, and plenty of worthwhile secondary prizes are on offer.
Perhaps the biggest upside to this lottery is the low cost of entry compared to the amount you can win and the odds of winning. The odds of winning anything are 1 in 6.6 while winning the CAD$2 million jackpot is roughly 1 in 13 million.
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Oregon Megabucks
Oregon Megabucks starts with a healthy jackpot of $1 million that grows every drawing until someone wins the whole thing. This jackpot grows at a fair clip and fairly frequently builds multi-million dollar jackpots. In several past instances, the Megabucks jackpot has exceeded $20 million.
Oregon Lottery officials like to boast that Megabucks has created over 240 millionaires to date and shows no signs of slowing. What makes this lottery particularly attractive is how inexpensive it is to play compared to the payout potential. Every $1 lottery Megabucks ticket gives you two sets of numbers and two chances to win.
Players also have an option to add the Kicker multiplier for $1 extra on every ticket. Doing so multiplies all four and five-match wins by four and adds a $4 prize tier for three matches.
Oregon Megabucks also deserves a special mention for one time paying an Iraqi man a $6.4 million jackpot he won by purchasing a ticket online at TheLotter.
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Virtual Lotteries Exclusive to Lottoland
Lottoland’s virtual lotteries are a unique new type of lottery product that offers bigger prizes than some of the world’s biggest drawings. To understand how these work, keep in mind that Lottoland does not buy actual tickets – it simply serves as a place for you to bet on the outcome of official lotteries.
According to official prize payouts, you are still paid, but it is Lottoland who pays if you win. Lottoland can afford to pay massive jackpots by taking out special insurance contracts to pay you in the eventuality of a big win. So, the way it works is you bet on the lottery numbers of a real-world lottery, and if you win a prize, Lottoland pays you the same amount you would have won had you entered the underlying lottery with a ticket.
Lottoland’s virtual lotteries work on a similar principle, except Lottoland offers custom prizes. Each virtual lottery is based on the outcome of a real-world drawing, but Lottoland determines prizes. This allows Lottoland to provide reliable, provable, and fair results but with prizes that are much larger than the official jackpot of the underlying lottery.
These virtual lotteries have unique prize levels and payouts, but the winning numbers of every virtual lottery are derived from a real-world drawing that has taken place somewhere in the real world.
Friday Lotto
Lottoland’s Friday Lotto bases its numbers on two drawings (TS Super Szansa and FDJ Keno Joker+) to pick an eight-digit number every Friday. Entries cost €2 and have you choose an eight-digit number. If your number matches the number drawn by the two underlying lotteries, you win the top prize.
The Friday Lotto jackpot starts at €10 million and grows by €8-€9 million every week up to a maximum jackpot of €50 million. If the €50 million jackpot passes without a winner, the jackpot resets to €10 million the following week and begins growing again. This lottery has eight prize tiers with prizes ranging from €1 to €1 million in the lower seven tiers and maxing out at €50 million at the jackpot tier.
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KeNow
KeNow is a keno-style game exclusive to Lottoland that holds a new drawing every 4 minutes with a chance to win €1,000,000 in every drawing. In KeNow, you can select up to ten numbers from a range of 1-70 and then receive payouts based on the amount of numbers selected, the number of matches, and your original bet size.
To go for the €1 million top prizes, you’ll need to pick 10 numbers, bet €10, and watch all 10 of your numbers match. If that sounds a little too risky, you can bet as little as €1 and still receive payouts as high as €100,000 with enough matches. The odds range by a wide margin depending on how many picks you make, but the best odds you can get are 1 in 4 while winning the jackpot is 1 in about 2 million.
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Mega New Year’s Eve Drawing
Each year, Lottoland holds a special New Year’s Eve drawing with massive prize pools and better odds than other comparable lotteries. This lottery’s name changes each year, but you’ll find it listed on the Lottoland website as Mega 2019, Mega 2020, and so on to keep up with the new year.
Last year’s Mega offered a first-place prize of €100 million and boasted top-tier prize odds twice as good as EuroMillions. In addition to the grand prize, it offered thousands of pounds in lower-tier prizes. The numbers are derived from Brazil’s annual Mega Da Virada draw, which is drawn on New Year’s Eve.
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WorldMillions
WorldMillions guarantees €150 million in weekly jackpots spread across two weekly draws. Drawings held on Thursdays offer a €50 million jackpot, while drawings held on Sundays offer €100 million. These are fixed jackpots that never change – you play for the same amount every week.
In this drawing, you pick an 8-digit number and win the jackpot if the drawing picks the same number as you with all digits in the correct order. The odds of winning are 1 in 100 million, which are certainly long odds, but still better than the likes of EuroMillions and Powerball. WorldMillions also offers the unique advantage of only selling one number to each player, never to share prizes. Everything you win is entirely yours to keep.
The numbers chosen in WorldMillions drawings derive from a combination of numbers drawn in Germany’s Plus5 and Austria’s ToiToiToi.
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Other Virtual Lotteries
Other lottery sites are starting to come out with their own virtual lotteries as well. We’ll be keeping an eye out for additional virtual lottos and update this page as we find them.
DinoLotto
DinoLotto is based on the outcome of EuroMillions but offers its own prizes. This one comes with a fixed jackpot of €50 million every drawing with the same odds and game structure as EuroMillions. In many instances, DinoLotto offers a better value to players than the actual EuroMillions game.
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