Mega Sena is run by the Caixa Economica Federal and had its first draw in 1996. The lottery was started to benefit a number of local beneficiaries and charities. The first draw started off incredibly small, but over 20 years later, they have grown to become the most popular lotto in Brazil.

Related Article: Celebrating Mega Sena this Carnival Day!

Mega Sena works like any traditional lottery where you need to pick a set of numbers to try and match the lottery balls chosen during the live draw. For Mega Sena, you are required to pick 6 lucky numbers from a range of numbers between 1 and 60. You can only pick each number once.

Draws for Mega Sena are held twice a week. They happen every Wednesday and Saturday at 20:00 local Brasilia time (BRT).

In order to win the jackpot, you need to match all 6 of the numbers drawn. You can also match only 4 or 5 numbers to receive a smaller tiered prize.

The prize amounts are dictated by how many people have bought lottery entries. They take 46% of the total income from lottery entry sales and use it for the prize fund.

The other 22% of the prize fund will be accumulated for special draws and the final 5% will accumulate for Mega Da Virada (the special New Year’s Eve draw).

The biggest Mega Sena jackpot in history was a Mega Da Virada draw that gave away a R$306.7 million jackpot. This jackpot was split between 17 winning entry holders who each walked away with R$18 million.

Mega Da Virada is the special New Year’s Eve Mega Sena draw. It is known for producing the largest Mega Sena jackpots because it accumulates its prize fund from 5% of every draw throughout the year. One of the most exciting things about this draw is that if nobody matches 6 numbers, the jackpot doesn’t rollover but instead is awarded to players who matched 5 numbers! This makes the Mega Da Virada Mega Sena not only popular as a lotto in Brazil, but all over the world.

If you want to participate in Mega Sena, the biggest lotto in Brazil, you can buy your entries straight from Lotto247. This way, you don’t need to be in Brazil to play and you don’t even have to watch the live draw to see if you’ve won! Lotto247 will email you after every draw you have entered to make sure that you know the results of your Mega-Sena entry as soon as they are released. Play Mega Sena now!

This article forms part of our Mega Sena Resource Centre.