Mega-Sena: Rules, Price & Odds

Name	Mega Sena	Ticket Price	R$4.50
Draw	Wed & Sat	Biggest Won	R$306.7 Millions
Winning Odds	1 in 50.063.860	Countries	Brazil

South America is known for its love of lotteries. Due to this immense popularity, many South American countries have their own national lotteries. The country that’s the topic of today’s discussion is Brazil. For Brazilians, the official national lottery platform is Caixa. Caixa is responsible for holding Mega Sena, the most popular lottery in Brazil. Today, in this guide, we take a look at this lottery in detail and try to understand how it works and what makes it so popular.

How to Play Mega Sena

No one is a stranger to how a lottery works. You pick a set of numbers that you feel have a chance of getting selected as winners. The more numbers you guess correctly, the bigger of a payout you get. That’s all there is to it.

In the case of Mega Sena, you have to choose a minimum of 6 numbers out of 60. You can pick up to 15 numbers for more chances at the lottery. However, picking more numbers is going to increase your bet value. So keep that in mind when you purchase your ticket.

The more bet value you place, the better your odds are going to get. But the bet values can get quite expensive. You’ll see what we mean when we discuss the pricing later on. Mega Sena also features a Bolão system, which allows you to create a larger bet. This also allows you to share your winnings with others. You can also allocate the percentage of the winnings that they can receive. 

This option allows you to play while sharing your winnings. You can also invite others to place bets with you. But no matter how many players you’re sharing your winnings with, only one person may place the bets. You can purchase a lottery ticket in multiple ways. You can get a physical ticket by visiting any Caixa bank or an authorized retailer. You can also get the ticket online from their official website.

When you go to purchase a physical ticket, you’ll be handed a sheet that contains numbers. You select your numbers from this sheet by marking them with a pen. After you’re done marking the numbers, hand in the sheet and collect your ticket after payment. Depending on how many numbers you select, the bet value will change. More numbers selected will result in a higher bet value. We will discuss pricing in an upcoming section. So stay tuned for that.

If you’re playing online you’ll need to register at the website. You’ll also need an account with Caixa Econômica Federal Bank. With these two things, you should be able to get your winnings into your account directly if you’re playing online.

Caixa also features other lotteries aside from Mega Sena. The list of these lotteries includes Quina, Lotomania, Dupla Sena, and many more. Each lottery comes with its own sets of rules and rewards. So be sure to check them out.

In Mega Sena, you also have the option of randomly selecting your numbers. This process is called the "Supersinha" entry. Simply choose this option when you’re purchasing the tickets online, or ask the retailer to do it for you. Although you are leaving it up to the system to do the picking for you, it doesn’t boost your chances of winning. The random numbers generated have the same odds of winning if you were to pick them.

Rules of Mega Sena

There are different kinds of lotteries in the world. Each comes with its own set of rules and rewards. That’s what makes lotteries so interesting. You can have so much variation while keeping the same core concept of the game. This guide, however, will focus only on explaining the rules related to Mega Sena. So without any more delays, let’s get started.

Odds to Win the Prizes

Odds are what you need to understand any lottery. Odds will determine your chances of winnings and also how big of a payout you can expect. You can get more prizes if the odds are really high. Odds matter not only in lotteries but also in games like the best online bingo. So here’s a quick look at the odds of Mega Sena for 6 numbers played.

• All 6 main numbers have odds of 1 in 50,063,860.
• 5 main numbers only have odds of 1 in 154,518.
• 4 main numbers only odds of 1 in 2,332.
• If you want to shoot for the maximum and select 15 numbers, here are the odds for that.
• All 6 main numbers have odds of 1 in 10,003.
• 5 main numbers only have odds of 1 in 370.
• 4 main numbers only odds of 1 in 37.

Price of Mega Sena Tickets

Now, let’s talk about pricing. How much is it going to cost you to play Mega Sena? We’ll discuss all of that here. The base price of the Mega Sena ticket is R$4.50. This lets you choose 6 numbers. If you want to choose more numbers, you have the option to do so. This will make you eligible for other draws. The more numbers you select, the higher the price is going to get. 

Choosing 7 numbers will cost you R$126. For 8 numbers the price will increase to R$378. You can choose all the way up to 15 numbers in this way. The most amount that you can bet on for 15 numbers is R$22,522.50. 

Although spending more and selecting more numbers is going to give you more chances at the jackpot, the odds for the numbers remains the same. The odds will improve on paper, but practically every number will still have the same odds.

Mega Sena Jackpot

The best selling point of Mega Sena would have to be the jackpot. There’s no limit fixed by Caixa as to how high the jackpot can go. If there are no winners on a particular draw, the prize gets added to the next draw. So it’s quite a significant amount.

The prize fund is generated from 43% of the income of the bet values. The jackpot for hitting all 6 numbers is 35% of the total fund. Second place winners who manage to get 5 numbers right will get 19% of the total prize fund. 

For fourth place, it’s also 19% of the prize fund. In the case of multiple winners, the prize money is distributed equally. The Bolão system is an exception to the equal distribution since the player decides who gets what percentage of the winnings.

There’s also a special version of the Mega Sena Lottery on New Year’s Eve every year. It’s called Mega da Virada. This is extremely popular among the people because of the huge jackpot amount. There are records of huge winnings from these as we will see in the next section.

Biggest Win Made

We’ve already teased a bit about the huge amount of money that you can win. Let’s take a look at a real example of someone who’s won a huge amount from the Mega da Virada. The jackpot for Mega da Virada comes from Caixa setting aside 5% of the funds from each draw. The highest recorded winning from Mega da Virada was in 2018 which was a whopping R$306,7 million! That’s insane considering what the winner needed to pay.

Results of Mega Sena

There are 2 draws held weekly for Mega Sena. The draws take place on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm local time. They take place at the offices of Caixa. The results are also broadcast on RedeTV at 8:25 pm local time. The results also get uploaded to the website soon after the initial draw. You can check the results online by visiting their website. 

How to Claim Mega Sena Prizes

If you’ve won below R$800, you can easily claim the money at an authorized lottery house. The prizes collected from the lottery houses are handed out in cash. You can get the cash in this way almost instantly. 

For winnings above R$800, you’ll need to collect them from the Caixa Econômica Federal bank. You must claim the money within 90 days. If you fail to meet this timeline, your money will be donated to educational programs. For those playing online, you can have all of your more numbers in your Caixa bank account. This makes it easier and safer to collect the prize money.

Taxes of These Prizes

Although lotteries in Brazil have some taxes attached to them, it’s less compared to other gambling countries. There is a 13.8% tax on any lottery winnings in Brazil. If you manage to hit the jackpot or any other prize, you’ll have to pay the 13.8% tax. The jackpot after paying the taxes comes down to 32.2% of the winnings. 

Our Opinion on Mega Sena

Since the sky is the limit for the jackpot in Mega Sena and you only have to pay R$4.50 for a chance, you should try it out at least once. The tax on the winnings is a bummer, but since it’s less compared to other countries, we recommend Mega Sena.

Mega Sena FAQs

For any further questions, you can check out some of the common ones that get asked.