Filling the grid only from 1 to 31 does not change your chance of matching six numbers, because every one of the 13,983,816 combinations is equally likely. It changes how many people you would split with. Polish slips lean heavily on birthdays and name days, so the low end of the grid gets marked far more often than 32 to 49 does.
The game at a glance
6 of 49
Tue · Thu · Sat
Poland
1 in 13,983,816
The same for every possible combination, including this one.
All divisions →
18+
Must be 18+ to play Lotto in Poland.
Poland Lotto, in brief
Lotto is Poland's oldest number game, run by the state operator Totalizator Sportowy. A single bet asks you to mark six numbers from 1 to 49, and six balls come out of one drum. There is no second pool and no extra ball, so the six numbers on your slip are the whole game. A bet costs 3 złoty, a quarter of which is a statutory levy that funds Polish sport.
Draws run three nights a week, on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The first-tier pool carries a guaranteed floor of 2 million złoty, and when nobody matches six numbers the whole pool rolls into the next draw. Nothing caps how far it can climb. The biggest first-tier pool on record reached 57,804,715.20 złoty on 7 May 2016, and three tickets ended up sharing it.
For 1 złoty more you can add Lotto Plus, which sends the same six numbers into a second, separate draw held straight after the main one. Its top prize is a flat 1 million złoty with no rollover, so it never climbs the way the main jackpot does. The two draws use their own balls and produce their own result, and matching in one tells you nothing about the other.
Prize tiers
Match 6Jackpot
The jackpot, with a guaranteed floor of 2 million złoty and no ceiling once it starts rolling
Match 5
A pari-mutuel share of the second-tier pool, usually a few thousand złoty
Match 4
A pari-mutuel share, typically somewhere around a hundred złoty
Match 3
A fixed 24 złoty, the only guaranteed amount in the game
Where Poland Lotto came from
The first draw in 1957
The first Lotto draw took place on 27 January 1957, which makes it the oldest number game still running in Poland. For its first 27 years the draw was a Sunday fixture. Saturday took over on 2 June 1984, and a midweek Wednesday draw was added on 2 October 1991, doubling the chances available in a week without touching the 6-of-49 grid itself.
Three draws a week
The Wednesday draw ran until 29 August 2007. From 4 September 2007 two nights replaced it, Tuesday and Thursday, which alongside Saturday gave Lotto the three weekly draws it still holds. The grid, the 49-ball pool and the four prize tiers were left alone, so a ticket bought in 2006 and one bought in 2008 faced identical odds of 1 in 13,983,816.
The rollover rule of 1996
Before November 1996 the first-tier pool did not carry forward from draw to draw. The kumulacja rule introduced that month let an unclaimed pool roll into the next draw and keep growing until somebody matched all six numbers. Polish jackpots have been headline material ever since. The largest single win came on 16 March 2017 in Skrzyszów, where one ticket collected 36,726,210.20 złoty.
Picking numbers, honestly
Frequency tables of past Lotto results circulate widely in Poland, and they describe the past accurately enough. They predict nothing at all. Each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday draw starts from an untouched set of 49 balls, so a number missing for six months is exactly as likely tonight as one that came up yesterday.
Adding Lotto Plus does not improve anything about your main Lotto bet. It buys entry to a second draw of the same six numbers, with its own balls and its own result. You can match five numbers in Lotto and nothing at all in Lotto Plus on the same night, because the two draws share only the slip they are printed on.
Poland Lotto — frequently asked
Three. Matching three of the six pays a fixed 24 złoty, and one or two matches pay nothing.
A 1 złoty add-on. Your six Lotto numbers go into a second draw held after the main one, with a flat 1 million złoty for six hits. That top prize never rolls over, so Lotto Plus has no growing jackpot.
There is no cap. The first-tier pool starts at a guaranteed 2 million złoty and rolls over whenever nobody matches six numbers. The record pool reached 57,804,715.20 złoty on 7 May 2016 and was split between three tickets. The largest single win, 36,726,210.20 złoty, was collected in Skrzyszów in March 2017.
Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Saturday has been a draw night since 1984, while the Tuesday and Thursday pair replaced the old Wednesday draw in September 2007.
A system bet is a bundle of ordinary bets. Marking twelve numbers covers 924 combinations and costs the price of 924 bets, so every line still carries the same 1 in 13,983,816 chance. You are buying more tickets, not better ones.