It is almost always worth spending a couple of euros to take a crack at the German Lotto (6aus49) thanks to its guaranteed minimum jackpots and fast rollover periods. With drawings held twice a week and more non-jackpot cash prizes awarded every drawing, it’s easy to see why this tends to be one of the most sought-after lotteries among online players.
Best German Lotto Sites
There are two ways to play the German Lotto online. First, you can buy Lotto 6aus49 tickets online at TheLotter or PlayHugeLottos. They’ll send someone located in Germany to buy your tickets, scan them, and e-mail you a copy. Any cash amount that you win will prompt the lottery site to contact you and arrange full payment of the prize.
The other option is to visit an online betting site that offers markets on lotteries. For example, some betting sites offer wagers on most international lotteries in which you attempt to predict the winning numbers. In doing it this way, you don’t actually buy or take ownership of tickets; you bet against the bookmaker on the winning numbers.
Lottery betting in this manner doesn’t offer the massive payout potential that you get with actual tickets, but you do have more flexibility in choosing which types of bets you place and how much you want to risk. For example, betting options for the German Lotto include selecting up to five numbers (with a 150,000/1 payout), bets on the first number being even or odd, the value of the first number, and more.
Lotto 6aus49 Explained
The German Lotto hosts drawings every week on Wednesday and Saturday. The Wednesday jackpot always starts with at least €1.3 million in prize money, while the Saturday jackpot guarantees no less than €2.6 million. If nobody wins, the prize pool rolls over to the next jackpot and grows each drawing from there.
When you buy German Lotto tickets online, your goal is to predict the six winning numbers ranging from 1-49 (hence the name) plus a bonus number ranging from 0-9. You win the big jackpot if all six of your regular picks plus the bonus number match those selected during the next drawing.
Secondary prizes are also awarded regularly to those who match some but not all numbers. In all, there are nine ways to win a cash prize in the German lottery. You can also buy subscriptions online to be automatically entered in further drawings for more chances to win the big one plus all other prizes.
Drawings are announced online and across much of the country’s major media outlets. You can also watch the drawings live online here.
Payout Levels and Odds of Winning
The best possible outcome in the German Lotto is to match all six regular numbers plus the bonus number for a guaranteed 7-figure or more payout. With rolling jackpots causing the prize pool to grow quickly, the top prize can easily reach €10-€20 million. The largest payout in history was a €59,000,000 jackpot split between three winners in 2007. The largest jackpot ever awarded to a single winner was worth nearly €38 million. That’s about all the reason anyone needs to give this one a shot.
Below is an overview of the various payout levels, plus an example of prizes that have been won in the past at each level. Prize amounts vary based on the number of tickets sold, how many winners there are in any given level, and how many drawings have passed without a winner. Thus, the examples below are not exact indicators of what you will win, but they should give you a decent idea of what to expect.
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Is it Legal to Buy 6aus49 Tickets Online?
It depends. If you live in Germany, you can visit the official 6aus49 website to buy tickets online legally. The lotto website accepts various payment methods such as Visa/MasterCard and sells subscriptions up to five weeks in duration.
The German Lotto does not sell tickets internationally, and that’s where the lottery sites mentioned near the top of this page come into play. They actually send real people out to buy tickets on your behalf so you can play from any country in the world. However, the legality of buying tickets online varies from country to country. The smart course of action would be to check your local laws first.
I wish I could give you a more detailed answer than to “check your local laws,” but the legality of buying lotto tickets online changes everywhere you go. What I can tell you for sure is that hundreds of thousands of people buy lottery tickets online around the world, and we have yet to hear of anyone getting in trouble for doing so.