Mauritius Lottery

As of 2009, Mauritius operates a national lottery system via the Lottotech Company. It is responsible for the proper functioning and processes of all the lottery systems and makes it a must to always abide by all the rules as set down by the Gambling Regulatory Act 2007. Coupled with the American leader firm in technology GTECH, Lottotech provides all the best technologies for the games to take place. The company has become a member of the World Lottery Association since 2009, thus providing transparency into its business and to be more reliable. Currently, lottery games include the green lottery, the loto and scratch cards.

Loto
The most common type of lottery played nowadays is the loto. It is available at about 580 places on the island including all supermarkets and most shops. The lottery is a ticket that can be used once or a dozen times; it consists of grids with numbers from 1 to 40. In order to play, you just have to tick 6 numbers as per your choice with a blue/black pen or pencil and give it to the retailer with the right amount of money - one entry is at Rs20. He then validates the numbers via the loto machine and gives it back to you with a receipt of your numbers and the amount paid. Alternatively, you can let the machine choose 6 numbers for you via the quick pick option. You can play as many times as you want. The minimum draw is at Rs5 million and every Saturday the draw is carried out on air and the lottery results for the winning numbers announced.

Scratch cards
There are about 12 scratch cards that can win you instant money. The cards are very different in the way they are played, scratched and cost different prices ranging from Rs20 to Rs40 with prizes up to Rs500,000 if you are lucky enough. They include cards as OX, Lucky cash, Gold Chest, Pile ou face, Pitaye, La Faya and Blackjack. Other cards can bring you additional prizes besides money such as the card car cash where you can also win a Toyota Yaris 2010 besides the cash prize. Moreover, there is a TV show, the millionaire, that allows you to go on air if you get 3TVS when the millionaire card is scratched where you can win Rs1 million through turning a wheel or a minimum amount of Rs100,000. Alternatively, you can get other cash prizes by scratching the card.

Green Lottery
The Mauritian green lottery used to be the most common type of lottery played on the island but ever since the introduction of the loto, sales have gone down. Lotteries are sold at Rs10 with a maximum cash prize of Rs10 million a month. Draws are done monthly and in December, the prize is doubled to Rs20 million. The holder of a ticket may also participate in another draw with the same ticket two months after the first draw of the ticket. About 4,990,000 tickets are put on sale during the year from February to November while the amount doubles in December with two draws. Draws are carried out by a computerised system at the Mutual Aid building in Port Louis.

The money obtained from the games is used by the Mauritian government to aid in 4 main sectors: culture, sports, education and health. In order to protect Mauritians from excess gambling, minors are not allowed to play. Winners are expected to show up at any retailer to claim their prizes for wins less than Rs2000 while higher amount are paid at the main building of the National Lottery at the HSBC centre, 18 Cybercity, Ebene.

As a means of precaution and for verification purposes, it is recommended of the winning tickets holders to write their name and sign at the back of the tickets. Documents needed to get the prize include either the ID card or passport of the winner; another party can get hold of the money with copies of the above named documents of the winner. Bear in mind that all tickets must be in a good state so that the winning numbers can be read to obtain the prize; the tickets are valid up to 3 months after the draw.