Main game

In the main game of Lotto, six balls and one bonus ball are drawn from a Smartplay Halogen II machine containing 40 balls numbered 1 to 40. To win First Division (the top prize), one has to simply mark off all six numbers on the same line.

Players can buy Lotto tickets by selecting their own numbers using a coupon, or they can have the machine randomly generate their numbers by purchasing a Lotto Dip. Tickets cost $0.70 per line,^[7]:8 with a minimum of four lines if playing with a coupon. The least expensive Lotto Dip is the Basic Lucky Dip, which costs $5.60 for eight lines.

Lotto Strike

Introduced 3 April 1993.

A Lotto player may, at a cost of $1, add to their ticket four Lotto Strike numbers. The objective is to match these numbers, in exact order, with the first four numbers of the Lotto draw.

The current minimum jackpot for the "Strike 4" prize is $100,000, and increases by that amount until won, or until the jackpot reaches $700,000 or the tenth draw without a winner.^[8]

Powerball

Introduced February 2001.

A line may be "enhanced" by the purchase of a Powerball number. If Powerball is played, a minimum of four Powerball numbers must be purchased per ticket, at the cost of $0.80 per line. The Powerball number is a number between 1 and 10, drawn from a separate machine from the main Lotto draw. If the winning Powerball number is on the same line as a winning line of Lotto, the ticket holder wins a share of the Powerball prize pool in addition to the prize won from the main Lotto draw.

To win first division Powerball, the winner must first win Lotto first division, and have the winning Powerball number on the same line. The prize for first division is very large: a minimum of $4 million, but with the chances of winning one-tenth of the odds of winning an equivalent prize in the main draw. Since April 2017 Powerball First Division can jackpot to a maximum of $50 million. Once the limit is met or passed, a "Must Be Won" draw must be held in which, if First Division is not won, the First Division jackpot must be split amongst the winners of the next highest division for which there are winners.

When introduced, the Powerball number was originally drawn from eight numbers, and the minimum prize was $1 million. The maximum jackpot, which initially was $15 million, was gradually raised to $30 million. In October 2007, Powerball was changed to ten numbers and the minimum prize was changed to $3 million. On 3 October 2010, the price per line was raised from $0.50 to $0.60, to cover the cost of the rise in GST from 12.5% to 15%, and to increase the minimum prize to $4 million. In October 2015, Division 7 was introduced and the maximum jackpot increased from $30 million to $40 million. In April 2017, the price per line changed from $0.60 to $0.80.

Draw machines

Starting from the 30 May 2018 draw, Lotto, Strike and Powerball are drawn using Smartplay Halogen II machines. Until the 26 May 2018 draw, a Ryo Catteau Stresa draw machine was used for Lotto and Strike, while Powerball was drawn from with one of two Ryo Catteau Mimosa machines.^[9]

The machines have been known to fail to draw numbers on-air on several occasions, requiring the numbers to be redrawn off-air under auditor scrutiny. These include:

• 25 October 2014: The Powerball machine failed to draw a winning number on-air. The audited off-air draw resulted in 4 drawn as the winning number.^[9]
• 15 July 2017: The Powerball machine initially captured number 6 but it was knocked out of the tube during the presentation. The draw was aborted, and the audited off-air draw resulted in 1 drawn as the winning number.^[10]

In the event the draw machines cannot be used, the Lotto draw can be conducted using a backup random number generator at Lotto NZ's headquarters. This has occurred on two occasions: the first was in October 2019 when the New Zealand International Convention Centre fire forced the TVNZ studios to be evacuated,^[11] and the second was during the COVID-19 pandemic Level 4 lockdown in March–April 2020.^[12]

Winning Wheel

Introduced August 2004.

Every Lotto ticket had a 16-digit Winning Wheel number (e.g. 123-45678901-20XX) which was the same as the ticket's serial number, except that the two digit checksum was replaced with XX for security reasons. Every draw, a serial number was drawn at random. The winner was awarded an all expenses paid trip to the studio in Wellington and, later, Auckland where they appeared on the show and spun the eponymous wheel to determine their prize.

The two-metre diameter wheel had 30 segments, each segment carrying either a cash prize ranging from $100,000 to $1 million, or non-cash prizes such as cars, shopping sprees and a $500,000 house and land package.

If someone did not wish to appear on the Winning Wheel, they might nominate a person to spin the wheel on their behalf, or they might take the minimum guaranteed prize of $25,000.

Entry into the draw for the Winning Wheel was automatic for all Lotto and Lotto Powerball tickets. Lotto Strike tickets were excluded, as they had a serial number ending in 12XX, not 20XX.

The Winning Wheel ended on 4 July 2015.

Lottery

Between 34 and 75 numbers were drawn from 75. Viewers at home had to match the numbers on-screen with numbers on a mini bingo board. These could be purchased at $2 each for a minimum of two tickets. There were three divisions:

• Four Corners: If you got each of the three corner numbers (the other was just a tick) before 27 numbers had been called, you won Four Corners.
• Cross: If you got the eight numbers that made a diagonal cross (plus the top-left corner tick) before 34 numbers had been called, you won Cross.
• Bingo. The big one – they keep drawing numbers until a Bingo winner had been found amongst all tickets for that draw. If there was one before 34 numbers had been called, they kept going until 34 numbers were called. The record was 37 Bingo winners.

If there were no winners in a division, the respective prize pool was carried over to the next division.

Game show

Three contestants appeared on the show. They started with $125 and a corner square, they earned $25 and another corner square for every question right and lost $25 (but not their corner square) for every question wrong. At the Cross round, they were given two squares as a head-start towards Cross. After Cross was earned, random squares were given with every correct answer until either a viewer or a contestant got Bingo. There were two possible outcomes as to the end:

• If a contestant got Bingo first, they kept going until a viewer got Bingo, and then any contestants who got Bingo would come away with double their final total.
• If a viewer got Bingo first, it went to "Run For Your Money", in which the contestants had 60 seconds to get Bingo, and anyone who got it would come away with double their final total.

The contestant with the most money then went to a memory board, where he or she had to reveal two matching squares to get a certain prize, and then he or she had the option of taking away the prizes or risking them for more the next week.

Lottery

Twenty-five numbers from 1 to 90 were drawn. The objective was to match one of the following:

• The 12 numbers in Game 'R'
• The 9 numbers in Game 'S'
• The 6 numbers in Game 'K'
• The 3 numbers in Game 'I'

All panels except Game 'R' had one or more $ signs which could be marked off immediately. A number could appear on two panels on a single ticket.

The game-board looked like this:

X X X     $    
X X        
X X X X    
X X     X    
X X   X    

  X X X X   $  
X X X    
  X $     $      
      X X X    
X X X X   $

Game 'R' jackpotted if not won.

There was a team colour printed on each ticket. If that team won, then all tickets bearing that colour went into a draw for a cash prize.

Game show

Three teams of two contestants (namely Red, Yellow and Purple) were spotted $500 ($300 in the first few episodes) to begin the game with. Correct answers were worth $50, and incorrect answers were penalized by that amount. After two rounds, the team in third place was eliminated, and at the end of the last round, only one team prevailed.

Jackpot

The original format of Big Wednesday saw the first draw's jackpot consist of $2 million cash and two luxury cars. If not won, non-cash prizes were added to the jackpot for the next four weeks, after which the cash component then increased until the jackpot reached a combined cash value of $30 million. At this point, a "Must Be Won" draw would be held, with the jackpot divided amongst lower division winners if Division 1 was not won.

Some of the "non-cash" prizes – namely, the travel and bach components – were paid as cash (via cheque or direct credit); the other prizes could be paid as cash at Lotto NZ's discretion, including:

• if the winner did not fulfill certain conditions for receiving a prize in kind (for example, being under the age of 18, or not being a permanent New Zealand resident),^[15] or
• where there was more than one winner of the jackpot prize in a single draw (normally Division 1, however it could also be divided amongst a lower division in a Must Be Won draw); the cash value of the non-cash prizes being divided equally amongst all winners.

Effective 14 September 2011, the jackpot prize was changed so all of the non-cash prizes are made available from the first draw in a jackpot sequence (although with some of the "non-cash" prizes reduced in value). The advertised "cash" component then increased with every jackpot draw until won (or the $30 million "Must Be Won" threshold is reached). The minimum jackpot prize consisted as follows:

• $2 million cash
• Two luxury cars (currently an Audi Q7 and Lamborghini Gallardo),
• a Visa Platinum credit card with $50,000 of credit,
• a $50,000 cash prize intended towards luxury travel,
• a Rayglass 2200 boat,
• a $675,000 cash prize intended towards a bach.