Buy Lotto Tickets Online

If you’ve ever wondered if you can buy lotto tickets online, we have good news for you: yes, you definitely can.

Not only is this possible, but it’s extremely convenient, inexpensive, safe and potentially very profitable as well.

As a result, buying lotto tickets online has become the #1 method for entering lottery draws around the world for millions of lotto players.

At BuyLottoTicket.com, we make it easy to play the hottest lotto draws on the planet.

We also explain all of the benefits and disadvantages of doing so and clarify some common misconceptions that people have about the practice.

Why Buy Lotto Tickets Online?

There are many reasons to buy lottery tickets through the internet, but the main ones for most people are convenience and expanding their options.

In the old days, the only way to enter any lottery draw would be to visit your local lottery ticket kiosk and buy a physical ticket directly from the vendor.

To do that, you’d have to travel to a local newspaper stand, store or mall, fill out the lottery form with your numbers, stand in line and pay for your order. You also have to remember to store your ticket somewhere safe until the draw so that you don't lose it.

Thanks to the best online lottery sites, you no longer have to do any of these things, and with that come many other convenient benefits. In addition, you can play lotteries you’d normally never be able to play.

Here are the main benefits of playing the lottery online:

Play the Best Lotteries in the World

If you live in one country, your lottery options are generally limited to only what’s available in your country.

In other words, if you live in the US, your main choices are probably going to be the Powerball or Mega Millions. You might also dabble in state-run lotteries such as the California SuperLotto Plus or jointly operated lotteries such as Cash4Life.

If you live in Europe, your options might be a bit wider due to transnational lotteries like EuroMillions and EuroJackpot in addition to whatever lotteries are available in the country you live in.

But what if you live in Germany and want to play the US Powerball, or you live in Canada and want to play Mega Millions?

Unless you’re planning on travelling to the countries that host these lotteries or know someone who lives in them, it’s going to be impossible.

That's why purchasing lotto tickets online is a game-changer.

Like the internet has done with so many other industries (Uber, Tinder, etc.), it has revolutionized lotteries by opening up a world of options. It also makes the entire experience more fun, exciting and streamlined in the process.

Save Time

If you're the type of person who buys lottery tickets frequently, buying them online will save you lots of time.

As mentioned above, the whole process of visiting your local lottery ticket agent can take a while.

But buying lotto tickets online just takes minutes. And once you’re already signed up with an online lottery site, it can take even less time.

This frees you up to do the other things in life you love to do. Time is precious, and cutting out as many trivial things as possible from our routines is always a good thing.

Take Advantage of Great Features

When you play the lottery the traditional way, the experience is pretty straightforward and hasn’t changed much over the years.

Basically, you choose your numbers, buy your tickets, wait for the draw to take place, check your numbers and repeat.

Although the lotteries and jackpots themselves might have some exciting elements, the experience for you, the lotto customer, basically stays the same.

As a result, especially if you’ve been doing this for years, things might feel a bit stale sometimes.

But when you buy lotto tickets online, you can significantly spice up the whole experience. That's because you can take advantage of great features like syndicates, subscriptions, mobile apps, instant-win and scratch card games, and much more.

We break these down in more detail below.

Improve Your Odds by Joining a Lottery Syndicate

A lottery syndicate is often also called a lottery pool or group play, and it refers to a group of people who buy lotto tickets collectively.

Each member of the pool agrees that if any of the tickets in the pool win, the money will either be split equally. Or proportionally if different people bought different amounts of tickets (known as “shares” in the pool).

In real life, people usually do this with people they already know and trust, like family members, friends or co-workers. But thanks to the internet and the various lottery services that exist nowadays, you can also do this with a group of strangers.

This is by far the best way to increase your chances of winning a lottery jackpot or a great prize.

It's also what we recommend when people ask us where to get the cheapest lottery tickets since splitting the cost among many people will save you money.

The downside is that you’ll need to share whatever prizes you or anyone else in the pool wins.

But it’s a lot better to split a big prize among a group of people than to not win anything at all!

Use Subscriptions and Never Miss a Draw Again

Ever missed out on a big lottery draw because you simply forgot to buy a ticket in time? With a subscription, that won’t ever happen again.

A subscription allows you to prepay for a certain number of draws so that you’re automatically entered in all of them. A subscription can last a few weeks, a month, a half a year or even longer.

This means you can take it easy and just wait for the draw results to come in-no further action needed on your part.

Enjoy Instant-Win & Scratchcard Games

Playing lotto online will give you access to dozens of lotteries from around the world that you otherwise probably wouldn’t think to play. However, sometimes it’s nice to fill in the time between draws with other types of games.

That’s when instant-win games like Keno, raffles and digital scratch-card games are excellent.

These games usually offer the same level of excitement you’d find in their real-world counterparts. But since they are digital-and therefore available anytime and anywhere-they are even easier to play.

An added bonus is you don’t have to wait around for a draw, as the results are often instantaneous.

Use Mobile Apps to Streamline the Process

Some of the best online lottery services have excellent apps that make it even easier to do all of the above things.

Lottery apps allow you to easily do the following:

✅Play in lotteries

✅See draw results

✅Keep a tab on upcoming jackpots

✅Generate random numbers

✅Join lottery syndicates

✅Check your tickets and winnings

✅Deposit or withdraw funds in your player account

✅Much more

How to Buy Lotto Tickets Online

The process of buying lottery tickets online is usually fairly straightforward and involves the following steps:

Sign up with an online lottery website
Deposit funds into your player account using your preferred payment method
Choose which lottery you want to play
Pick your (hopefully) lucky numbers
Confirm your order
Check the lottery draw results
Collect your winnings

The registration process is normally quick and painless, and should only take a few minutes.

However, when it comes to paying out prizes, some lottery websites are much more stringent with their requirements than others.

As a result, being asked to provide proof of identity and address is not uncommon. The process to verify your identity might take anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on the company.

But once you’re set up, all future prize deposits should automatically appear in your player account without you needing to lift a finger.

Best Lotteries to Play Online

All reputable lotto sites will let you try your luck on the world’s most popular lotteries.

Since you will no longer be limited only to the lotteries that are available in your country, you can engage in a bit of online lottery tourism. Doing so you can see which games offer the jackpots, mechanics and odds that best suit your tastes.

This is why there are so many Brits who play Mega Millions in the UK, even though they can play EuroMillions whenever they want. The same applies to countless other people in countries all around the globe.

To get you started, we’ve broken down the world’s best lotteries according to the regions in which they exist. These guides will help you find the best online lotteries to play in no time at all:

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Best North American Lotteries

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Best European Lotteries

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Best Australian and New Zealand Lotteries

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Best South American Lotteries

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Best Asian Lotteries

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Best African Lotteries

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, most online lottery services are extremely safe, secure, and reputable.

Though newcomers come onto the scene all the time, there are a handful of websites that have been around for 15+ years and have amassed millions of regular players.

Regardless whether a site is old or new, the most reputable sites will have most if not all of the following:

a generally good online reputation
a license (at least in the case of lotto betting sites) from a reputable gambling commission
excellent customer support
transparency with their terms and conditions
a lottery experience that rivals-if not surpasses-that of the biggest official lottery providers
winners’ stories featured somewhere (either directly on the site or a third-party site)
SSL encryption (the URL will be green and/or you’ll see a padlock when filling out sensitive forms)
Verification from VeriSign, GeoTrust, McAfee Secure, Norton, or similar organization

In most countries, yes. In fact, many of the world’s largest lotteries officially allow their countries’ residents to purchase tickets online directly from the official lottery site.

However, some of them do not allow foreigners to do so unless they are physically within the country at the time they buy their tickets. In these cases, third-party lottery sites are the only way that foreigners can either buy physical tickets for the draws or bet on the results of the draws without having to travel anywhere.

Since lotto agents are providing a concierge service to buy tickets on your behalf and not reselling tickets that they had previously purchased themselves (something that is not permitted), they are 100% legal.

Furthermore, lottery betting sites have nothing to do with the official lotteries themselves other than using them as a basis for what results people are betting on. Therefore, as long as they are licensed to operate within the jurisdictions they exist in, they are completely legal too.

That being said, there are some countries, including the US and China, that do not permit online gambling. If you’re not sure what your country’s stance on this is, check our list of countries that have banned online gambling.

Not really, as most only charge a small additional fee per ticket, and that’s how they make their money.

However, when you consider the convenience they are providing and the fact that you don’t have to travel anywhere, especially beyond your country’s borders, to buy a lottery ticket, this fee is usually trivial.

That being said, it’s important to pay careful attention to the terms and conditions of the lottery site you’re thinking of playing with, as some sites will also take a commission on major winnings.

This could be more than 10% of your prize money, which could add up to a serious amount of money if you’re lucky enough to win millions of dollars.

Luckily, most sites don’t charge commission, but it’s always best to do your homework in case you’re not 100% sure.

If you’re playing through a reputable lottery site, then yes, you will definitely get your prize money.

In fact, most of the top lottery sites automatically collect secondary winnings on behalf of their customers and directly deposit them into their accounts.

This saves their customers the hassle and time of having to collect the money themselves. For major and jackpot wins, most lottery agents will require the customer to fly to the country where the winning draw took place so that they can claim the money-and glory-themselves.

In these situations, lottery site will reach out to the winner and explain the entire procedure to them so that there won’t be any surprises or hiccups later on. Some of the biggest sites will even cover the cost of the flights for the winner!

The exact payment methods that will be available to you will depend on what site you’re playing through, as different sites prefer to use different payment portals.

Some of the most common ones include VISA, MasterCard, American Express, Neteller, Skrill, Paysafecard, Click2Pay, WebMoney, direct bank transfer, and occasionally even Bitcoin.

There generally aren’t any limits in place for how many entries any individual person can buy for most lotteries.

However, the motto that generally applies to gambling also applies here: “Know your limit and play within it.”

That being said, most of the payment portals that online lottery sites use have a limit on how many can be purchased in one batch, and that is usually in the 20 to 30 ticket range.

Of course, if you need more tickets than that, you can just buy multiple batches, as there are no caps on batches.

This really depends on what you’re after, and the main question boils down to two factors: the value of the prizes and the odds of winning.

Are you just looking to win the biggest jackpots possible, or would you prefer to have a much better chance at winning smaller jackpots?

If tough odds don’t bother you, then you should probably go for the US Powerball or Mega Millions, as these are the only lotteries to have surpassed the $1-billion mark.

However, if you think you’d be content with millions of dollars, then the Canada Lotto 6/49 and Austria Lotto both provide much better odds.

For more details, read our in-depth guide to the best lotteries to play online.

If you’re asking in a general sense, then the answer is any time you want.

One of the beautiful things about playing lotto online is you don’t have to be at the whim and mercy of any brick-and-mortar stores’ hours of operation.

Want to buy a ticket at 3 am on a Wednesday night? Then go for it! There’s nothing holding you back from doing so.

In a more specific sense, the important thing to always keep in mind for any upcoming draw is what its ticket-purchasing cut-off time is.

For many lottery games, this will be 30 minutes to 1 or 2 hours before the draw is scheduled to take place. Different games have different cut-off times, so it’s important to check what it is for the game you’re considering playing to make sure you don’t miss the boat.

Also, keep in mind that if you’re playing through an online lottery site, you’ll usually need to buy your tickets several hours before the official cut-off time. This is because the site’s employees will need extra time to go out and buy your tickets for you.

With betting sites, however, this window should be smaller, as all they need to do is process your order.

Although the majority of big lottery draws take place in the evening between 8 pm and 11 pm, the days of the week that they occur varies for each lottery.

For example, US Powerball and Canada Lotto 6/49 draws happen every Wednesday and Saturday night. Meanwhile, Mega Millions and EuroMillions draws occur every Tuesday and Friday night.

All EuroMillions draws occur on Tuesday and Friday evenings, while Eurojackpot draws take place on Friday evenings.

Therefore, to stay abreast of the next upcoming draw you’re interested in participating in, it’s always best to check the lottery’s official website.