Every South African lottery draw takes place at 21:00. What changes is which game draws on which night, and that catches people out more often than the time does.
The full draw schedule
| Game | Draw nights | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Daily Lotto | Every night, seven nights a week | 21:00 |
| Lotto | Wednesday and Saturday | 21:00 |
| Lotto Plus 1 | Wednesday and Saturday | 21:00 |
| Lotto 5 Max | Wednesday and Saturday | 21:00 |
| PowerBall | Tuesday and Friday | 21:00 |
| PowerBall Xtra | Tuesday and Friday | 21:00 |
So what draws tonight?
Daily Lotto draws every single night, so there is always at least one draw. On top of that:
- Monday, Thursday and Sunday: Daily Lotto only
- Tuesday and Friday: Daily Lotto, PowerBall and PowerBall Xtra
- Wednesday and Saturday: Daily Lotto, Lotto, Lotto Plus 1 and Lotto 5 Max
Wednesday and Saturday are the busiest nights, with four draws each. Tuesday and Friday carry the PowerBall, which is usually the largest jackpot of the week.
When do the results actually appear?
The winning numbers are published within minutes of the draw. The prize breakdown, meaning how many people won in each division and what each division paid, takes longer. It is normally a few hours behind the numbers, sometimes not until the following morning.
That gap is normal and it is not a sign anything has gone wrong. It exists because the operator has to reconcile ticket sales before it can confirm what each division is worth. On this site the numbers go up as soon as they are published and the breakdown fills in when it becomes available, so a game page will sometimes show numbers with the breakdown still pending.
What time does the lotto close?
Ticket sales close before the draw, not at the moment of it. For all six South African games above the cut-off is 20:30 on the night of a draw, and it is the same deadline for Lotto, Lotto Plus 1, Lotto 5 Max, PowerBall, PowerBall Xtra and Daily Lotto. It does not change with where you buy, so a shop till, the official website or app, and the USSD line all stop at the same time.
Two things can pull that deadline earlier. Banking apps sometimes close before the operator does, and Nedbank publishes 20:25 for entries bought through its own channel, so if you play through your bank work to 20:25 rather than 20:30. Separately, some sources still quote 20h40, including the operator's own website. We have not been able to confirm that figure directly, so 20:30 is the time we would work to, and it sits inside every cut-off currently in circulation.
Buying after the cut-off does not cost you your money. The entry goes into the next scheduled draw instead of that night's. If the minute matters to you, check with the retailer, bank or app you are buying through. The lotto draw days and times page carries the same cut-off alongside every game's draw nights.
Checking after the draw
Once the numbers are up you can enter your numbers and see what you matched, for any of the six games. If you want to know what is at stake first, the current jackpots are listed largest first.