Products like the Christmas Lottery, El Nino, French Lotto and US Powerball are proving increasingly popular from Cape Town to Johannesburg and back. While the SA Powerball and SA Lotto, of course, still has their place, people from all over Mzansi are growing eager to take advantage of the lotteries offered by other countries. Accessibility to these is more now than ever, thanks largely to the reach of the internet and it’s easy to see why the French Lotto is a firm favourite. The draw happens just after 9pm, three times a week – on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. Approximately R18 million (€1 million) is put into the tier 1 payout each time it rolls over and main prize has been known to creep as high as R90-plus million. That’s a healthy chunk of change – and could buy you a few houses in the heights of Sandhurst or hills of Constantia. The draw costs a mere 40 bucks to enter – that’s the price of a couple of cokes at your local spaza shop. Christmas could come early for those who enter the Spanish Christmas Lottery. Formally known as the ‘Sorteo Extraordinario de Navidad’, it happens once a year on 22 December. It is one of the oldest lotteries in the world. It’s also one of the biggest in terms of the collective prize pool. The main jackpot is as high as R43 billion. Just think how many trips to Barcelona or Madrid you could take with all that cash. It would certainly beat just travelling to the Kruger National Park for the umpteenth time. South Africans will be more familiar with El Nino, the weather pattern, than El Nino, the lottery. But the latter is certainly more welcoming and lucrative. Like the Spanish Christmas lottery, it’s more of a raffle than a usual lottery. There’s almost R13 billion on the line for this one – and the 6 January 2021 draw date could set your new year up on the (very) right foot. Let’s not forget our mates in the United States, where thankfully there is more on offer than just Joe Biden vs Donald Trump debate. There is no arguing the fat sum offered by the US Powerball. It happens twice a week and, at the time of writing, the main prize was more than R6 billion. That’s a hefty number, which we have the ever-fluctuating rand-to-dollar rates to thank. Indeed, the exchange rate make all jackpots offered in euros, dollars and pounds all the more attractive. When one of England’s currency fetches 20 of your hard-earned rands or two of America’s moolah means 30 of yours, well, the numbers speak for themselves. Of course, local is also lekker, so the SA Lotto and SA Powerball can keep you playing in the three-figure millions, but they’re not necessarily going to push you into contention for billions.
