Playing the lottery in India is a controversial topic. Within the country itself, each individual state formulates its own rules and currently, the majority of states have banned the sales of lottery tickets.
However, this ban does generally only apply to merchants within India. If we look outside of the country, plenty of lottery platforms, often situated in Europe, are selling entries into a heap of international lotteries, such as the US Powerball, Mega Millions, EuroJackpot and Cash4life.
Playing the lottery at these sites is not a problem as long as Indian Rupees are supported as a currency, which is often the case. However, as individual lottery sites set their own ticket prices, a huge discrepancy can sometimes be found between them. This leads us to the topic; let’s answer it!
Lottoland Tends to Have the Cheapest Lottery Tickets
According to onlinelottobaba.com who have compared ticket prices for Indian-centered online lottery sites, Lottoland has the cheapest lottery tickets. It is not without exceptions though as a few lotteries are priced higher here than at other sites. However, looking at the comparison table below where five popular lotteries and five lottery sites are compared, it is clear that Lottoland wins the race of average ticket prices.
| Lottery | Lottoland | Lottofy | LotteryWorld | Lotto247 | TheLotter |
| US Powerball | $4.00 (?300) | $4.00 (?300) | $4.00 (?300) | $4.00 (?300) | $5.00 (?377) |
| Mega Millions | $4.00 (?300) | $4.00 (?300) | $4.00 (?300) | $4.00 (?300) | $5.00 (?377) |
| EuroMillions | $3.20 (?240) | $3.30 (?250) | $4.00 (?300)) | $3.60 (?260) | $7.20 (?535) |
| EuroJackpot | $2.15 (?160) | $3.30 (?250) | $4.00 (?300) | $2.95 (?220) | $6.60 (?492) |
| Cash4Life | $2.70 (?200) | N/A | $3.75 (?280) | $3.60 (?260) | $5.00 (?377) |
* Price in USD have been converted from Rupees
Comparing Lottoland to TheLotter, an entry into EuroJackpot costs more than 3 times as much at TheLotter. You would get three tickets at Lottoland for the price of one at TheLotter. That’s a huge discrepancy.
There’s more to consider than just raw ticket prices though.
Promotional Offers and Discounts Matter Too
Something that isn’t accounted for in the above comparison table is the possible discounts you can get on a ticket. Having done our research, it is clear that some sites intentionally set their ticket prices higher in order to offer better discounts. Why? Probably because discounts always sound good.
While it will vary from one lottery platform to another, discounts can be had for purchasing multiple tickets into a draw, subscribing to automatically get new tickets on a regular basis, and playing for enough money to reach a certain loyalty tier that comes with benefits.
This could mean that the price you pay at the end of the day would be lower at TheLotter than Lottoland even if the initial ticket price is higher. What you need to ask yourself though is if it is worth going through the trouble of getting all the discounts required as opposed to just buying tickets that are cheap to begin with.