Supplementary numbers are drawn from the same barrel of 45, not a second one. That means a supplementary can never repeat a winning number in the same draw, unlike games where the bonus ball comes from its own pool. It also means only two of the six divisions involve them at all.
The game at a glance
6 of 45 + 2 supplementary
Sat
Australia
1 in 8,145,060
The same for every possible combination, including this one.
All divisions →
Bonus Ball
Saturday Lotto draws eight balls from the same barrel of 45. The first six are the winning numbers. The last two are supplementary numbers you never pick yourself, and they matter only for Division 2 (five winning numbers plus a supplementary) and Division 5 (three plus a supplementary).
18+
Must be 18+ to play Saturday Lotto.
Saturday Lotto, in brief
Saturday Lotto is Australia's weekly six-number draw, sold through the Lott across most of the country and by Lotterywest in Western Australia. A game asks you to pick six numbers from 1 to 45. Eight balls come out of the barrel each Saturday. The first six are the winning numbers, and the last two are supplementary numbers, used only to separate two of the six divisions.
The draw runs every Saturday night. Division 1 carries an advertised prize pool of about $6 million, and because the odds sit at 1 in 8,145,060 against millions of entries, it is usually won and usually shared. If nobody takes it, the pool jackpots to the following Saturday, which happens rarely enough to make news. Superdraws lift the pool to around $20 million a few times a year.
One quirk sets this game apart from most national lotteries: it has four names. The same barrel, the same numbers and the same divisions are sold as TattsLotto in Victoria, Tasmania and the Northern Territory, Gold Lotto in Queensland, X Lotto in South Australia, and Saturday Lotto in New South Wales and Western Australia. Results are identical wherever you bought the ticket.
Prize tiers
Division 1: 6 winning numbersJackpot
The Division 1 prize pool, advertised at around $6 million in a standard draw and shared equally among all Division 1 entries
Division 2: 5 winning numbers + 1 supplementary
A substantial pari-mutuel share, the second-largest slice of the prize pool
Division 3: 5 winning numbers
A solid mid-range share of the pool, well below Division 2
Division 4: 4 winning numbers
A modest prize, usually a few tens of dollars
Division 5: 3 winning numbers + 1 supplementary
A small prize, close to the cost of a few games
Division 6: 3 winning numbers
The smallest cash division, often around the price of an entry
Where Saturday Lotto came from
Melbourne, June 1972
The game began in Victoria as TattsLotto, drawn for the first time in June 1972 and televised live from Melbourne. The original format asked for six numbers from 1 to 40 with a single supplementary drawn after them, and first division paid $50,000. It was the first European-style lotto game in Australia. The game spread to other states over the following decade under different local names.
The change to 45 numbers
From 1985, the barrel widened from 40 balls to 45 and a second supplementary number was added. Both changes lengthened the odds of taking Division 1, moving them to the 1 in 8,145,060 figure the game still quotes. That is the arithmetic of choosing six numbers from forty-five, and it has not changed in forty years.
Division 6 changed in October 2020
The bottom division used to ask for one or two winning numbers plus both supplementaries, which came out at 1 in 144. From 10 October 2020, draw 4093, it became simply three winning numbers, shortening that division to about 1 in 52 and taking the chance of winning any prize from 1 in 85 to 1 in 42. Odds tables printed before the change still circulate, so a Saturday Lotto page quoting 1 in 144 for Division 6 is either out of date or describing the separate weekday 6-of-45 draw, which kept the old structure.
One draw, four brands
Because Australian lotteries were licensed state by state, the same product carries different names in different places. Tatts, Golden Casket and their counterparts merged into what is now the Lott, but the local branding stayed. A Gold Lotto ticket in Brisbane and an X Lotto ticket in Adelaide enter the same Saturday barrel and pay from the same national prize pool.
Picking numbers, honestly
System entries do buy more chances, but not better ones. A System 8 covers every six-number combination inside eight chosen numbers, which is 28 games at 28 games' worth of cost. Each of those games still faces the same 1 in 8,145,060, so the price per unit of chance is unchanged.
Sticking to 1 through 31 for birthdays does nothing to your odds against a 45-ball barrel, since every six-number set is equally likely. It does concentrate you among the crowd, and Division 1 here is shared far more often than in bigger games, so the size of your share is the part those low numbers actually affect.
Saturday Lotto — frequently asked
Yes. Same draw, same numbers, different state branding. TattsLotto, Gold Lotto, X Lotto and Saturday Lotto all settle on the same eight balls.
They split two divisions off the main ladder. Matching five winning numbers plus one supplementary is Division 2, above plain five. Matching three plus one supplementary is Division 5, above plain three. Everywhere else they are ignored, and you never choose them on your slip.
1 in 8,145,060 per game, which is exactly the number of ways to choose six numbers from 45. A System entry or a multi-game slip buys more attempts at that same figure, not a better one.
Yes, it jackpots to the next Saturday, but it seldom gets that far. With entries counted in the millions and odds under 1 in 8.2 million, Division 1 is usually claimed, often by several tickets at once, and split between them.
A scheduled draw where the Division 1 pool is topped up to roughly $20 million instead of the usual $6 million, run a handful of times a year. Bigger Megadraws go higher again. The numbers, the barrel and the odds stay exactly the same.