SuperEnalotto – The Big and Tough Italian
Italian lottery SuperEnalotto offers a chance to win massive jackpots three times a week. Only US mega lotteries have had bigger prize pools. On the other hand, SuperEnalotto jackpot is notoriously tough to win, as there are 90 numbers to choose from.
Because of this, rollovers lasting several months are not uncommon. When the jackpot reaches record heights, there is lotto fever all over Italy, and it spreads among online players as well.
How to play SuperEnalotto?
The gameplay is very simple. You pick 6 numbers between 1 and 90 and choose whether you want to participate in the Superstar extra feature.
When playing through an official agent in Italy, the base price for a SuperEnalotto line is 1€ and choosing the Superstar adds 0,50€ on top.
Online lottery sites do not usually have the Superstar option available. However the main jackpot is won by matching the standard numbers, so lack of Superstar does not affect this.
Now if playing the SuperEnalotto is simple, winning the jackpot is much harder. In fact, this is one of the most difficult lotteries to get right. This is simply mathematics: There are 90 numbers instead of the 49 or so in many classic lotteries. This makes the number of possible combinations larger by orders of magnitude.
That is why playing with syndicates is very popular both in Italy and among online players from other countries. Joining a group allows you to get many more lines for the same budget, and with massive jackpots there is plenty for each winner, even when shared.
In fact, the largest jackpot until 2019, a staggering sum of more than 177M€ was won in 2010 by a syndicate of 70 people. This makes for about 2,5 million euros in winnings for each participant.
The SuperEnalotto Draw
SuperEnalotto is drawn three times a week. The event takes place 20:00 Central European Time every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, with occasional changes around holidays. The game closes half an hour before the draw
Historically the draw used to have a very interesting, if complicated system. Each SuperEnalotto number used to be the first one drawn in six different regional lotteries throughout Italy, with Venice drawing the Jolly number.
Nowadays it has all been centralised and takes place in Rome. The SuperEnalotto draw is a popular television program broadcast live in Italy, and can also be watched after the event on youtube on the official SuperEnalotto channel.
First, the 6 main numbers are drawn from a drum containing balls numbered 1-90. These numbers will determine whether the main jackpot is won or continues to roll over to the next draw.
After these 6 standard SuperEnalotto numbers, two extra numbers are drawn. They are called Jolly Number and Superstar number.
These are a bit different from extra numbers in lotteries like Eurojackpot and EuroMillions, in that players don’t specifically choose them, only six numbers are marked on the ticket.
SuperEnalotto Jolly Number
A special Jolly number is drawn from the same lottery drum after the six main numbers. As it comes from the same set of lottery balls, the Jolly is always a unique number.
This number only affects the second highest class of wins. That means players with 5 main correct numbers can win a much larger prize if their sixth number matches the Jolly. There is no prize for matching, say 4 + Jolly or Jolly alone.
All SuperEnalotto tickets automatically have a chance of winning this extra 5 + Jolly prize, there is no extra cost to the ticket price. 13% of prize money is allocated to this special result, making for a nice “second jackpot”, especially if matched with a Superstar.
Superstar number
Superstar is an extra SuperEnalotto feature added to the ticket. When bought from an official agent in Italy, the cost per line is 0,50€ more. Again no extra number is chosen by the player, instead the Superstar has to match one of the 6 numbers already on the ticket.
The Superstar is drawn after the 6 main numbers and the Jolly. It has its own special drum, containing 90 balls like the main one. Because this set of lottery balls is separate, the Superstar number can be identical to one of the numbers drawn before it.
Superstar can bring a much higher variety of wins, as it affects all SuperEnalotto win classes. Superstar even gives a set amount of money (5€) when matched on its own. The following chart has all the combinations:
| Matching numbers and Superstar | Prize | Odds of Winning |
|---|---|---|
| 6+1 | Extra 2,000,000M€ | 1 in 56,035,316,700 |
| 5+Jolly+1 | Extra 1,000,000M€ | 1 in 9,339,219,450 |
| 5+1 | 25 times the standard 5 number win | 1 in 112,520,716 |
| 4+1 | 100 times the standard 4 number win | 1 in 1,071,626 |
| 3+1 | 100 times the standard 3 number win | 1 in 29,404 |
| 2+1 | Set amount: 100€ | 1 in 1,936 |
| 1+1 | Set amount: 10€ | 1 in 303 |
| Superstar alone | Set amount: 5€ | 1 in 138 |
There is a special rule in place in the unlikely scenario where too many players get the correct star number. In this case, the prizes would be adjusted to percentages of the prize pool instead of set amounts. This is very unlikely to come in effect.
Odds and the prize pool
As already mentioned, the main jackpot in SuperEnalotto is the most difficult of all lotteries to win. The chance is just 1 in 622,614,630. Compare this to the relatively “easy” game of Eurojackpot with odds of 1 in about 95 million and you see how small the chance of matching all six numbers is.
The breakdown of the prize pool by matching numbers is as follows
| Matching numbers | Percent of prize pool | Odds of winning |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | 17.4% | 1 in 622,613,630 |
| 5 + Jolly | 13% | 1 in 103,769,105 |
| 5 | 4.2% | 1 in 1,250,230 |
| 4 | 4.2% | 1 in 11,907 |
| 3 | 12.8% | 1 in 327 |
| 2 | 40% | 1 in 22 |
As you can see a large share of the prize pool is shared among players who get just 2 numbers right. So getting small wins every now and then is fairly common.
The SuperEnalotto jackpot has no cap and is never rolled down, it just continues to grow until someone finally nails it.
60% of all player money goes to the prize pool. That is a high share compared to many other lotteries at around 50%. It should be noted that 8.4% of the prize money is used to cover Instant wins.
Instant prizes is a feature only available to those playing at the official agents in Italy. Players can win set amounts of 25€ instantly based on lucky numbers printed on the ticket at the time of purchase. Unfortunately, online players can’t take part in these.
Taxes on SuperEnalotto wins
The current lottery tax in Italy is 12% for winnings over 500€. Most lottery betting sites replicate this tax structure, and thus bigger prizes are reduced by 12%. You should check for details at your lottery agent/lottery betting operator.
Any additional taxes on SuperEnalotto winnings depend on your country of residence.
Tips and tricks on how to win in SuperEnalotto
SuperEnalotto is a regulated lottery that takes great care in ensuring a fair game. This means that any combination is as likely as any other.
Of course with massive popularity of SuperEnalotto in Italy and elsewhere, there is no shortage of advice. This ranges from relying on magic to purported science. Most of the strategies rely on interpreting the past results and deriving supposedly correct predictions. Most are based on misunderstanding probability and false statistics.
Even if we were to suppose there were some microscopic differences in the lottery balls or other unknown effects, the sheer amount of more than half a billion different combinations would make them insignificant.
Some common tips apply to most lotteries, SuperEnalotto included:
Avoid having too many small numbers that correspond to calendar days, that is 1-12 and 1-31 as people often play their birthdays.
Avoid obvious or funny combinations like 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 or 10,20,30,40,50,60. With millions of players, there are certainly many others who thought of these.
However, if you are into numerology, having 90 numbers certainly opens up some interesting possibilities when compared to your average lotteries.
Biggest jackpots in SuperEnalotto
Updated: A lucky winner from the city of Lodi takes the top spot with an all-time record SuperEnalotto jackpot with a ticket costing just 2 euros!
| Top Ten | Date | Amount | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 13.08.2019 | 209.1M€ | Lodi |
| 2. | 30.10.2010 | 177.7M€ | Sperlonga and others |
| 3. | 27.10.2016 | 163.5M€ | Vibo Valentia |
| 4. | 22.8.2009 | 147.8M€ | Bagnone |
| 5. | 9.2.2010 | 139.0M€ | Parma and Pistoia |
| 6. | 17.4.2018 | 130.2M€ | Caltanissetta |
| 7. | 23.10.2008 | 100.8M€ | Catania |
| 8. | 19.5.2012 | 94.5M€ | Catania |
| 9. | 25.2.2017 | 93.7M€ | Mestrino |
| 10. | 1.8.2017 | 77.7M€ | Caorle |
Source for the list: Wikipedia Italy
SuperEnalotto, a top lottery?
We would definitely put SuperEnalotto among the top lotteries to play. The difficulty of winning and the build-up in excitement when the jackpot grows from week to week, sometimes for months on end, make this a true lottery fans game.
No wonder then the game has such a loyal following worldwide, many famous celebrities included.
The only downside of playing SuperEnalotto online is that some of the extra features are only available at official agents. However, the massive jackpot of the base game alone certainly makes this worth a try!