Gambling table-top games have always been – and they still are – one of the best ways to spend time in the company of friends or relatives. Try your luck, hope for fortune being on your side today, check your chances and get a good prize, or just a pleasant feeling of a win. Among those games, that you can play not only in gambling establishments or clubs, but at home, is lotto casino.

It is in the form of a "lotto", without modifications and variations, the game remained in the post-Soviet space. In the West, this game has turned into bingo - very similar in rules and mechanics of the game. Lotto play casino still remains one of the favorite home gambling activities for residents of CIS countries.

What is the background behind lotto, what are the rules, how did the game change through all these years? Why is lotto one of most popular casino games? Let’s find out in this review.

How to play lotto

Lotto is a table-top gambling activity, played on cards with printed-out table, filled with numbers. The numbers are located on 3 horizontal lines and 9 columns randomly. The digit of the number depends on the number of column. So, the maximal value of numbers in the first column is 9, in the last one – 90.

The main principle of this game is to cover announced numbers with the barrels on your card, if the card has them. The winner is the one who manages to cover all numbers on his card, or (depending on the kind of the game) a certain amount of rows or lines.

The number of players isn’t limited, everyone gets a different card, none of them are identical. That’s why the win fully depends on luck and attention of players. It’s almost impossible to cheat in the game, too. The numbers that you have to cover are always random. The game master gets a barrel from a non-transparent bag and announces the number of this barrel. That’s why each player has equal chances for a win.

Private lottery

There is also a public play lotto game, or private variations of lottery, played all around the country. To start playing table-top version at home, you need: a bag with plastic or wooden barrels, depicting numbers from 1 to 90 and a card with random numbers. Also, you need other players and a game master. Of course, you can study lotto rules and regulations and play this game by yourself, but it isn’t as interesting, and competition is an important part of this game. But if you have all the equipment, you can try playing alone to train.

So, for the simplest version of lotto you need:

  1. non-transparent bag with numbered barrels;
  2. special cards with numbers (classical game has 24 cards, in modern versions there can be an infinite amount of various cards);
  3. lotto rules for winning also require chips for covering the numbers on the card.

You’ll also need to have some luck on your side, but since it isn’t something material, it isn’t listed in the items list. So, if you have everything listed above you’re good to start!

Public Lottery

In clubs with lotto and bingo there are establishment workers to play the role of game master. Before the beginning of bets, according lotto max rules and regulations all players get cards and barrels for covering the numbers. In a public game quite a big amount of players is needed. Small halls for lotto (or bingo) can contain up to 200, or even 300 people. Each one of them has their own unique card and own set of barrels to cover the numbers, named by the game master.

When the eyes down (the game start) is announced, the game master starts to take out barrels and declare the numbers on them. The player searches for this number on his card, and if it’s present - covers it with a barrel. If this number is absent, the player waits for next number.

The history behind lotto

Popular all around the modern world, lotto was founded in Italy in the first half of XVI century. It was truly a folk’s game back then – everyone, despite their financial situation and estate, were playing it. For the longest time this game was so popular that some of the smartest Italians were getting profit from speculations of lottery tickets. To avoid this, the Italian government banned the game.

But at that point lotto has already made its way out of the country and started to spread around Europe. It came into Russia in XVIII century, but for the longest time it was a game only for upper class, just like preference.

First public lottery (the variation of lotto, that brings organizers profit from selling the lottery tickets) appeared in Russia, Moscow, in times of Peter the Great. But it wasn’t popular back then. Lottery and lotto, as we know those nowadays, have started to develop in times of USSR.

Modern history of lotto and lottery

The popularization of lottery and lotto at territory of CIS countries has begun back in USSR, in 1921. This entertainment was organized by the government itself, all profit made on tickets was part of USSR exchequer. The prizes were not only in cash – sometimes they included some items or goods. In some games lotto you were able to win furniture, household appliances or a car.

The lotteries became part of the USSR culture: the tickets were sold in kiosks, given as a change, as a part of salary, scholarship or other pays. As the lotteries were becoming more and more popular, so did the lotto game: people were making their own cards and barrels, and later sets of items for playing lotto appeared in shops and kiosks. The lotto game became just as popular as checkers or backgammon.

Aside from USSR, the game was played in USA and Europe. There this name was known as “bingo”, since this was the exclamation used to proclaim the end of the game. It began back in Italy, where the game master announced “bingo!”, when some player managed to cover all the numbers on his card. The “bingo” means “win”. Bingo became really popular: it wasn’t only played at home, but whole clubs were arranged, where the players still gather to play their beloved game.

Kinds of lotto

Each set of gaming equipment can be used in different ways. Just as you can play various kinds of poker with one classical card deck, you can play different kinds of lotto using the same set of items. Among the most popular versions of lotto there are:

  • Normal lotto;
  • Abbreviated lotto;
  • 3x3 lotto.

Each one of those kinds has its own specifics and some differences of the lotto betting rules, even though the main principle of the game and the gaming process are always the same.

Normal lotto

This version of lotto is the simplest one. In this version the player gets three cards. To win, the player has to fill all numbers on his gaming card with chips. The player who finishes filling the card first is the winner and he gets all the money. You can also fill 2 numbers and bonus ball on national lottery.

Abbreviated lotto

In this type of lotto, the winner is the one who is first to fill the line. For this kind of game only one card is used, and the rounds are quick. This type of lotto can be called “express game”, since lotto rules and prizes allow to play the biggest amount of rounds in the smallest amount of time.

3x3 lotto

In this game the speed of filling the card isn’t the only thing that matters; the location of those lines also does. If the player fills the first line on his gaming field, his bet will be doubled. The filled bottom line will end the game: the player wins and gets all money.

Types of lotteries

Casino lotto as a table-top game, and bingo, its variation, are not a rare game to see in most of offline and online casinos. The rules of this game always stay the same, and the main principle is to cover your card, or certain row of this card, with special game chips, or barrels. But the public lotteries include several kinds of this game, among which are:

  1. instant lotteries;
  2. draw lotteries;
  3. bonus one-timed or regular actions of various establishments.

Instant lotteries

Lotteries with instant winnings are those kinds of games, where the player doesn’t have to fill or count anything. All fields are already marked, and the winning sum of each ticket is predetermined. There are several kinds of those lottery tickets:

  • with erasable coverage;
  • tear-off tickets, that have to be deployed to learn the result.

This kind of lotto casino online is called instant, since the player can get small winnings on the spot where he bought the ticket. For large prizes player has to contact the lottery organizer. It’s also important that the price of the ticket usually determines the maximal prize sum. The expensive tickets can bring bigger prizes, than their cheap analogues from other organizers.

Advantages and disadvantages of instant lotteries

The advantages of instant lotteries are:

  1. ticket price;
  2. speed of learning the result;
  3. possibility of getting the prize right away.
  4. Among the disadvantages are:
  5. inability to choose the numbers by yourself, which means inability to use any strategy for increasing your chances for a win;
  6. minimal prizes;
  7. some of the organizers of such lotteries are fraudsters.

Draw lotteries

Lotto in casino with no deposit, where the certain amount of tickets is printed and being sold at kiosks and post offices are public lotteries, raffles of which are shown on TV. There are two kinds of tickets for those lotteries: those where the numbers are already marked, and those where you can choose the numbers by yourself. In both cases, the participants can learn what ticket was the lucky one from a special TV (or radio) show.

Advantages and disadvantages of draw lotteries

Among advantages of this gambling activity are:

  • ability to choose the numbers by yourself, using the certain strategies;
  • big prizes, up to hundreds of thousands, or even millions;
  • big variation of kinds of lotto.
  • Disadvantages of this kind of lottery:
  • tickets are printed and raffled quite rarely;
  • in the big amount of numbers, it’s harder to get a right winning combination, so chances for a win are lower.

Single bonus games or regular actions of various establishments

Those games can’t be called lotteries, since they don’t really have tickets. But the main principle of those raffles resemble to instant lotteries a lot. Your win can be based on the number of your paycheck, or your number in the customers list. The prizes that are used in those lotteries are usually paid in cash, but sometimes those are some bonuses or actions.

Systems of winning in lotto or lottery

The gambling games and lotto slots are designed to be fair: you can’t beat the organization that provides the game in any way, except for being lucky. Everything fully depends on random number generator, not on player’s skills and abilities. Despite that, people are still trying to create a strategy for winning the lotteries. Some of them really work, increasing player’s chances for a win, but not guaranteeing the result.

Different sources offer different variants. Some of them are sure that there’s no such thing as slots lotto strategy and you should fully depend on your luck. Other say that you have to use the same set of numbers each game, hoping that your combination will be the lucky one. Also, there are more serious tactics, that can be useful to you. Among those:

  1. drum strategy;
  2. the analysis of the numbers’ frequency;
  3. playing as a part of the club (syndicate).

Drum strategy

This kind of strategy suggests to choose a set of numbers (the amount of those depends on the kind of the lottery) and use them in different sequences and combinations. This way the probability of your sequences matching the winning combination will increase with each cycle.

Some professionals, or dishonest organization workers, engaged in lottery organizations, can offer you the preset drums. Those tickets will cost you a lot, but they won’t guarantee the jackpot.

Frequency analysis

This method is one of the most popular ones among the regular gamblers of lotto game machines. The main idea behind this principle is to track the winning combinations of the lottery for a while. By collecting statistics, you can calculate the numbers with the biggest drop-out frequency.

Depending on those observations and analysis of numbers’ dropout, the player can create a list of the most frequent-to-drop numbers and create combinations, based on this list. The main disadvantage of this strategy is that it takes quite a while to analyze all the winning combinations. But this method is considered to bring good results.

One of the examples is Carroll Blackmoor, Texas resident, who has managed to get a jackpot of 21 million dollars. He was following the results of raffles in others states, spent a lot of time analyzing the results and managed to find his winning combination.

Nowadays this can be done easier, since the lists of the winners and winning combinations are being published on lottery websites, and are kept there for quite a while, so all the information needed for such analysis is located in the same place.

Syndicate

This strategy is quite a successful one, but it won’t bring much money. The main idea behind this principle is that everyone who is the part of the club buys lottery tickets which increases the lottery casino probability to win. The more people there are in the syndicate and the more money they give, the more tickets can be bought, which increases chances for a win. But there is a nuance of being a part of the syndicate, that has to be considered before joining: if one of your tickets was a lucky one, you have to give a half of your win to the syndicate.

There are several advices for people using this strategy:

  • it’s better to create your own syndicate and be careful when choosing people to join it. The best option is to invite relatives, close friends, trustworthy coworkers – those people, whom you can trust;
  • if you’re joining the club of people that you don’t know very well, learn the syndicate’s rules, make sure that club works fairly and has a good reputation;
  • learn the rules of choosing the numbers in the tickets, find out whose duty is to buy those.

After using those advices to protect yourself from fraudsters, you can start play lotto in casino. This variant is quite successful, considering that around the half of all lotteries were won by the clubs.

The biggest lotto and lottery wins

Skeptics tend to think, that gambling activities don’t bring any real prizes. But the history shows that they are wrong. Many people were able to hit jackpots by acting smart, or, on the contrary, just because they were very lucky. We’ll name some of the greatest ones.

The biggest lottery prize ever was received by Red Bud, Kansas resident. In 2012 he purchased 3 tickets that were lucky enough to bring their owner USD 640 million.
Quite by accident, having bought the ticket for fun, the couple from Lincoln instantly became rich. Their sudden win was USD 365 million. Also, USD 363 million were won by Illinois resident, who had only 100 dollars and wanted to buy hot dog, so he spent 2 of them on it and on the rest of money he was given lotto tickets on change. One of them was a lucky one.

There are many cases like that, and there are many great lottery wins on lottery game machine. Almost each day there is a person somewhere in the world, whose life changes drastically after a purchase of the lottery ticket and victory.

Legends about lotteries

There are no legends behind lotto and lotteries; but there is a superstition, that big lottery wins aren’t something to be happy about. Some people believe, that after a big win in the lottery the unlucky streak of events will start in the winner’s life.

Of course, those are just rumors and superstitions. But all of them are based on real facts. There are lists of people who lost their luck after winning in the lottery, like they spent all their reserves of luck on this lottery ticket.

One of such cases in American owner of building company, who has managed to win over a hundred million dollars. Despite that he was generous with his money - some of those he gave to the woman he bought the ticket from, some of those were invested into charity, and the rest - on his personal needs, the fortune left his side. In next few years he was robbed quite a few times, then his granddaughter and daughter have died. The businessman himself became addictive to gambling and lost all of his money.

There are many cases like that. But there’s no need to look for connection between some troubles of yours with lotto casino online wins.

Progress and perspectives of the game

Classical lotto and bingo, just as lotteries, are quite a big segment of gambling industry that stays popular among dozens and hundreds of years. This game is mentioned in literature and movies, in many American movies people are playing bingo, and in Soviet movies the public lotteries are often mentioned.

Lotto is an interesting and pretty simple game that doesn’t require any additional skills or experience. It can be played just for fun, or for money, and in the both cases it’s a great way to relax and try your luck. Many gambling establishments, both land based and online, are offering players some certain variations of this game. An average American spends at least $ 20 a month on tickets of public lottery or on lottery game machine. All of those are the proofs of game’s popularity, showing that it’ll stay demanded for quite a long time. What can be more pleasant than getting big money without much effort.