The Australian Monday Lotto launched November 5th, 1979. It was the first of the two New South Wales lotto games to launch, with the second one being Wednesday Lotto.
Monday Lotto started out as a New South Wales-only game administered by New South Wales Lotteries, and up until 1994 when Oz Lotto was introduced, it was the only lottery game played in the state. However, Monday Lotto later started to expand throughout Australia.
On May 1st, 2006, Monday Lotto expanded to South Australia and Western Australia. On October 13th, 2008, a lottery company based in Tasmania and Victoria - Tattersall’s - started selling Monday Lotto tickets as well. 5 years later, on October 21st, 2013, Queensland’s Golden Castes also began selling tickets and joined the Monday Lotto.
Originally, the lotto game featured 40 balls, but a number of changes have been made since then. On August 20th, 1990, a second supplementary number was added to the game. Also, the game was expanded to 44 balls. On April 19th, 2004, the game expanded to the current 45 balls which made the game identical with the Saturday Lotto where six winning numbers and two supplementary numbers are drawn from 45 balls.
As for the branding of the lottery game, at first, it was branded as simply “Lotto”. However, on the May 17th, 2010 draw on Monday the name was changed to Monday Lotto. Also, a new system was introduced in Monday Lotto results - the ability to again recognize crosses in the game.
There were also many changes made with the prizes and divisions:
- The lottery game previously offered a “Double Up” option. This option allowed winners to double any Division 2 or Division 5 prizes. This option was later eliminated from the game.
- Between April 19th, 2004 and May 1st, 2006, a cash roll down feature was introduced, which meant that if the jackpot was not won - the prize would roll down and be shared between winners in the remaining prize tiers.
- Between April 19th, 2004 and May 1st, 2006, Division 4 and Division 5 had fixed prizes of AUD $20 and AUD $10.
- On February 26th, 2012, an extra prize was added to the game, making it a total of six prize divisions.
- Since February 26th, 2012, Division 1 no longer jackpots and it has a fixed prize of AUD $1 million for each winner.