Maharashtra State Lottery Review

Since the banning of lotteries in all but 13 of the states in India, lottery players in the country have been hard-pressed to find a local lottery that they can play in. Thankfully, many states already had existing lotteries that continued even after other states decided to ban the sale of lottery tickets. In this Maharashtra State Lottery review, we will look at one of these lotteries to see how it operates and what can be won by playing.

MAHARASHTRA STATE LOTTERY HISTORY

The Maharashtra State lottery was founded on April 12^th, 1969. The government of the Maharashtra state decided to begin operating its own lottery after it realised how many of its citizens were falling victim to lottery scams and illegal gambling syndicates. Since then, the lottery has operated under the banner of ‘Reputed and Trustworthy’ and to this day still holds its draws live and in public alongside a panel of lottery judges who ensure that everything is done accurately and fairly.

WHEN IS THE MAHARASHTRA LOTTERY DRAWN?

The lottery used to hold six draws, which took place with one being held every day of the week except Sunday. However, the lottery organisers decided to change this and, according to the official website, there are now ten draws that are held across each week—with Sunday still being the exception. Draws are stated to take place at 17:00 IST, and the official website states that the following ones are currently being conducted:

Monday: Sagar Lakshmi
Monday: Maharashtra Diamond Mini
Tuesday: Padmini
Wednesday: Akshay
Wednesday: Maharashtra Platinum Mini
Thursday: Akarshak Puskaraj
Thursday: Maharashtra Gold Mini
Friday: Vaibhav Lakshmi
Saturday: Maharashtra Lakshmi
Saturday: Maharashtra Silver Mini

In addition to these weekly draws, there are also bumper draws that occur on special holidays throughout the year. These draws do not have set dates but are announced as soon as the lottery operator has confirmed a date for them.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Maharashtra State Lottery Ticket One scary thing about Maharashtra State lottery is that there seems to be no details anywhere that explain how it actually works. We have scoured Google (even being brave enough to venture past page one of the results) and still can’t find any credible site that tells us how this lottery works. The one thing that we can say, which we managed to see by looking at past results on the official website, is that it seems to function more like a raffle than the international lotteries we are used to playing.

Players do not have to select a sequence of numbers that they wish to play with. Instead, each ticket has a predefined number consisting of six digits. A six-digit number is then drawn from the available pool during the draw, and the matching ticket is the winner.

PAY TIERS AND COST TO PLAY

There is no pricing that we can see anywhere. The one thing that we did, however, find is that a prize is awarded to all winners from the first tier place all the way down to the sixth tier. By the looks of the one lottery results sheet that we could find (for the Akshay weekly lottery), the grand prize is Rs. 700,000 (approximately $9,873). The other pay tiers are Rs. 2,000 ($28), Rs. 1,000 ($14), Rs. 500 ($7), Rs. 200 ($2.80), and Rs. 100 ($1.40) respectively for all players who come in second place and onwards.

TAXES

All lottery winnings in India are subject to a 30% federal government tax. Compared to some countries, like Canada, the UK, and Australia, which don't tax lottery winnings at all, this is a pretty big slice of your pie to have to give up.

WHERE TO PLAY

Suhas Kadam Fake Lottery Ticket The only way to play in the Maharashtra lottery is to purchase tickets from an accredited supplier within India. Luckily, these suppliers are relatively easy to find considering the vast number of them. Tickets must be purchased in person by the person who will own the ticket. Once the ticket is purchased, it is crucial to keep it in a safe place. Even a small tear on any winning ticket will result it in being rejected by the lottery office and will nullify the prize that it was entitled to.

At present, there is also no way to play in the Maharashtra lottery online. While there are a few sites that mention that they are working to add the lottery to their list of available lotteries, at the time of this review it does not look like any of them have been successful in doing that. This means that unless you want to travel all the way to Maharashtra in order to buy a ticket, it may be best that you check out a few online lottery websites for a more accessible lottery instead. By doing so, you’ll also be able to play for much bigger jackpots—and who wouldn’t want that?

Another reason to play lottery through a reputable online lottery company is that you can avoid falling victim to one of the fake lottery tickets that have been circulating all around Maharashtra State. This is exactly what happened to vegetable seller Suhas Kadam (pictured on right), who thought he had won 1.11 crore (about US$154,880) only to find out that his ticket was a counterfeit and therefore completely worthless.

CONCLUSION

We completely understand the reasoning that the Maharashtra government used when first deciding to launch a lottery. Not only would it protect the citizens from illegal gambling scams, but it would also bring in some revenue for the government to further service delivery and make life better for all. It seems that this is precisely what this lottery has done for many years now and will probably continue doing for many years into the future.

However, if there is one thing that we don’t like about this lottery, it is the lack of information relating to it. As almost everybody knows, Google is the place of answers. Nearly every question can be answered, and you can find plenty of information about a subject without having to dig too deep into the search results. Unfortunately, this lottery has almost no information online—one clear example of this is the fact that most of the information on the official lottery website was last updated in 2017.

We totally get that the Maharashtra State Lottery was started long before technology was where it is today and that back then websites were not something anybody thought about. But, as with everything in the world, the lottery should also be evolving and modernising to take on modern times. Doing this by digitizing it would definitely improve it—and at the same time introduce it to many more lotto players.