It was decided by the NSW government in the second half of 1930, to begin a lottery in New South Wales to help fund hospitals through New South Wales which were experiencing very tough financial times.

On June 22nd 1931, the Lotteries Act was passed and the very first NSWLotteries draw was held on August 20th that same year.

This inaugural draw of the NSW Lottery caused so much excitement that pavements were crowded as people queued outside the NSW Lottery – State Lottery – Office in order to take part in the first draw. Queues to buy lottery tickets spread out over 3 blocks.

The venue for this initial lottery draw in New South Wales was to be Her Majesty’s Theatre in Pitt which had been hired for the occasion.

The total number of prizes in this first NSWLotteries draw numbered 814 and ranged from £5,000 to £5 with the lucky winner of the jackpot prize being a Mrs. Eileen Morton from Manly.

In 1932, the Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened and 3 lotteries were introduced in New South Wales during February and March to honour the occasion.

In December 1954 the £1 Mammoth Lottery was introduced by NSWLotteries and had a jackpot prize of £30,000.

It was in November of 1979 that the first draw of Lotto took place on Monday 5th November with a lottery jackpot of AUS $384,975 up for grabs.

On March 17th 1980, NSWLotteries created its first millionaire when Sam Fabio won AUS $1,185,872 on the Monday Lotto.

In May 1982, the method of drawing Australian lotto games run by NSWLotteries changed from the marbles that had been historically used since the beginning, to a brand new Australian made Random Number Generator.

Instant Scratchies were first offered for sale by New South Wales Lotteries in November 1982 and offered a top prize of AUS $10,000.

In May 1989, NSW Lottery began offering The Pools – Soccer Pools – in New South Wales. Here it is known as the 6 From 38 Pools and is run by syndication.

February 1994 saw the launch of the first ever country-wide Australian Lottery game – Oz Lotto. The OzLotto is not run in New South Wales but is offered by NSWLotteries under syndication.

NSWLotteries brought out its own in-house game – Lotto Strike – in November 1995 which is still going strong today.

In May of 1996, NSWLotteries was able to offer another nationwide Australian Lotto game – Powerball – which had just been launched and is offered through syndication from another Australian Lottery company.

As part of the Lotto branding, Saturday Lotto was launched by NSWLotteries in December of 2000.

One of the NSW Lottery in-house games – the Lucky Lottery $2 Jackpot Lottery – was revamped in April 2002 with the number of tickets in each draw increasing from 180,000 to 200,000 and the jackpot increment increasing from AUS $50,000 to AUS $75,000 per draw.

July 2003 saw the largest ever prize won in any Australian Draw Lottery game when AUS $13.7 million was won on the Lucky Lotteries – $2 Jackpot Lottery.

In December 2003, NSWLotteries saw its biggest ever lottery win when a lottery ticket purchased in Yamba, NSW, won an Australian Powerball jackpot worth AUS $30 million.

The Monday Lotto and Wednesday Lotto games underwent a slight matrix change in April 2004 when and extra ball was added – giving them a 6 from 45 configuration – the same as the Saturday Lotto.

Another matrix change – this time to the OzLotto – was applied in October 2005 giving the game a 7 from 45 configuration. The aim here was to deliver larger Oz Lotto jackpots and more frequently.

June 2008 saw the biggest ever lottery jackpot won in any Australian Lottery game when a massive AUS $58.7 million was won on the Powerball game by a single entry.