Top: Games: Gambling: Lotteries: Mega Sena Lottery


[ history ]

About Mega Sena

The Brazilian Caixa Econimica Federal Bank manages the Mega Sena lottery, the most popular lottery game in Brazil. Since 1961, the bank has ran the lotteries. The bank wishes to raise money to improve life in Brazil by funding education and development programs. This is done by the bank transferring the profits made from the lottery to the Brazilian National Treasury. From there, the treasury funds educational and development programs.

In 1861, the bankers founded the Caixa Econimica Federal Bank to promote national savings. In 1967 all the other organizations with the same goals were combined with Caixa, which now runs most of the lotteries in Brazil.


[ history ]

How to Play Mega Sena

Numbers are drawn from two cages. One cage has numbers 0 to 5, and the other has numbers 0 to 9. After numbers are drawn from both cages, they combine to make a whole number. For example, if 5 and 7 were drawn, it would add up to 57, and if 0 and 9 were drawn it adds up to 9, but if 00 is drawn it equals 60. This process is repeated until six whole numbers are formed. In order to win the jackpot, you must match all six numbers.

Besides the jackpot there are two other ways to win Mega Sena. There are prizes for picking five or four of the winning numbers. Because there are only three ways to win, it leaves more prize money to distribute to winners, giving them larger prizes.

Players can play twice a week and see the drawing results on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

How the winnings are distributed

Only 46 percent of the profits are given to the prize winners, which is divided as follows. Of that 46 percent, the jackpot winner gets 35 percent, the second place winner gets 20 percent, and the third place winner gets 20 percent. The remaining 54 percent is used to fund education and development, and 25 percent of that is used for special draws held five times a year.


[ history ]

Mega Sena Prizes and winners

Claiming prizes

Those that win playing Mega Sena online (or offline) must claim their prize within 90 days after the draw. Though all prizes under R$800 can be claimed at any lottery house, prizes over must be claimed at the Caixa Economica Federal Bank. All unclaimed prizes are given to charities that help education and development.

Big winners

In 1999 the largest Mega Sena lottery was won by someone in Salvador, which was R$64.9 million. Since then the closest winnings were R$52.8 million in 2007, and R$53.1 million in 2008.



 All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyright Policy for details.) 
© Open-Site Foundation, Inc.
Hosted by Android Technologies, Inc. the medical robotics news source.
Visit our sister sites dmoz.org | mozilla.org | chefmoz.org | musicmoz.org