Exploring the Excitement of Romania's Lotto 6/49

Overview

The Romania Lotto or the Romania Lottery, gives you the chance to win big prizes during biweekly drawings on Sundays and Thursdays.  This lottery began in 1999, but the origins can be traced back to the early 1900s with the establishment of a similar lottery by the Romanian Church.  The funds that were generated by these lottery tickets were used to help poor families and instead of cash prizes, winners would receive household items, clothing or fabric.  Later, the prizes were changed to cars, motorbikes and even vacations. 

About the Romanian Lottery

Currently, most prizes are paid out in cash, but on special holidays like New Year’s Eve, Easter and on the special drawing on March 1^st, players can win an apartment in the Lotto Building or a car.  The largest jackpot that was ever registered by the Romania Lotto was €12.45 million - back in January of 2008 with the numbers 47, 36, 24, 6, 2, and 20.  This jackpot was hit by a young man living in Bucharest.  The second largest prize was €10.45 million, and it was hit by a player located in Calarasi which is located in southeastern Romania. 

Rules of the Romania Lotto 6/49

This lottery has a simple format that requires players to choose 6 numbers between 1 and 49.  The non-jackpot prizes can be won by correctly choosing 3 out of the 6 numbers.  To win the jackpot, players will need to correctly pick all 6 numbers.  Lottery players can choose numbers on multiple lines to maximize their chances of winning a prize. 

The Collective Romanian Lotto Ticket

After the record jackpot was won in 2008, a lottery syndicate was formed by a young man named S. Ogică who had won the lottery several times in his life.  S. Ogică was never able to win a jackpot by playing the Romanian Lottery but he managed to convince more than 600 people to jointly purchase a lottery ticket. 

This group completed all 3 fields – one had 23 lotto numbers while the other two had 12 lotto numbers.  Unfortunately, on this collective ticket, only a single number was drawn.  The prize for that lottery was awarded to an entirely different player who did not participate in the collective ticket.  Instead, this player purchased a basic lottery ticket and used the Quick Pick option to randomly choose the numbers.