State Lotteries played in Australia are mainly run by the Australian state governments. New South Wales Lotteries, South Australian Lotteries and Lotterywest, and one private company, Tatts Group Limited.

Tatts operates in a number of states that are not covered by state-owned operators. In general though more and more of the state lotteries that governments run are being put out to privately owned companies to run.

Tatts also allows some operators to sell lottery tickets online. One of these is "Ozlotteries". I would think that this is mainly so international lottery players can purchase tickets. They appear to add a premium to the ticket price which I expect covers their overheads. International sales though may have been severely restricted due to the USA senate regulation recently passed to prohibit online interstate gambling. This by default prohibits online international gambling for them as well.

Australia has a number of national lottery games, which are usually administered by one of the above companies, and then syndicated through the Australian Lotto Bloc an organization composing of the above lottery operators. All the prize pools are combined between states. Tattersalls administers Saturday Lotto (Tattslotto), Oz Lotto and Powerball games across Australia with South Australian Lotteries operating the Australian Soccer Pools. The state lotteries commissions for each state oversee the licencing of these.

Tattslotto, is a national game that can be played by all Australian states and territories within the Lotto Bloc. It is marketed as "Tattslotto," "Gold lotto," "Lotto," or "Saturday Lotto," depending on which state of Australia you reside. Six numbers are selected by the players, if a player chooses more than six numbers to create a "system" then more is paid for each number above the six numbers chosen. The jackpot starts at $4 million each week and has seven Super draws throughout the year were the jackpots are higher. A ticket costs 50 cents per six number play. You will win the jackpot if all six numbers match those drawn. You can also win if you match five, four or three numbers.

Oz Lotto was Australia's first lottery game and was the only national Australia game . Oz Lotto costs $1 to play. To win , all a play needs to do is match at a minimum three numbers to the 7 winning numbers drawn. The numbers are drawn every Tuesday evening.

Powerball is drawn every Thursday night. Each game costs 60 cents and to win a person needs only to match three winning numbers. Powerball offers better odds for winning than Saturday Lotto but the jackpot is much harder to win.

Online lotteries are gaining ground in Australia most of them are run from overseas and sometimes offer more attractive alternatives than the standard "lotteries. One recent entry "Lucky Stars" offers some quite unique ways of winning and all done on line. With online lotteries though one should be careful and ensure that they are "licensed" and audited by a well, respected government. "Lucky Stars" for example is licensed by the Maltese government who are part of the European Community.

State lotteries will always be around whether managed by private enterprise or by the state as they provide a lucrative revenue stream for the state coffers.