Texas Lottery

When the draws take place

Lotto Texas is drawn three times a week, on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday evenings at 10:12 p.m. Central Time. Ticket sales pause during a nightly draw break from 10:02 to 10:15 p.m. CT. Results are posted immediately on the Texas Lottery website and app, and the draws are broadcast by webcast and on participating television stations.

The other games run on their own schedules. Powerball is drawn Monday, Wednesday and Saturday; Mega Millions on Tuesday and Friday; Texas Two Step on Monday and Thursday; and the daily numbers games are drawn multiple times a day.

How the game works

To play Lotto Texas, you choose 6 numbers from 1 to 54. Each play costs $1. You can pick your own numbers on a playslip, use the app, or ask for a Quick Pick to have them chosen at random. Match all six numbers to win or share the jackpot, which starts at $5 million and rolls over until it is won.

You can add the optional Extra! feature for $1 more per play. Extra! boosts the non-jackpot prizes: it adds $10,000 to the second prize, $100 to the third and $10 to the fourth, and it pays $2 for matching just two numbers. Jackpot winners choose between 30 annual payments and a cash value option, and this choice must be made when the ticket is bought. Other games available include:

Texas Two Step: a smaller in-state jackpot game.
Cash Five and All or Nothing: quick draw games with fixed top prizes.
Powerball and Mega Millions: multi-state games with jackpots that regularly climb into the hundreds of millions.

Odds and prizes

Lotto Texas has four prize tiers. The two middle tiers are parimutuel, meaning the money for each is shared among its winners and varies from draw to draw, while the lowest tier pays a fixed $3. The overall chance of winning any prize is 1 in 71.

The breakdown per $1 play is listed in the table below. For context, the multi-state games carry far longer odds and far bigger prizes, with Powerball around 1 in 292 million and Mega Millions around 1 in 302 million.

Lotto Texas jackpots regularly climb into the tens of millions of dollars. One of the largest in recent years was a $95 million jackpot in April 2023. That win later became controversial, because a group used official lottery terminals to buy nearly all of the roughly 25.8 million possible number combinations to guarantee the top prize, which helped prompt investigations and major changes to how the lottery is run.

Texas also regularly sells large Powerball and Mega Millions tickets worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Under Texas law, winners of $1 million or more can request that their name and address be kept private, so many big winners are not publicly identified.

Texas voters approved a state lottery through a constitutional amendment in November 1991, and the first Scratch Ticket went on sale in 1992. Lotto Texas held its first drawing on 14 November 1992, quickly becoming one of the most popular games in the state. Texas joined Mega Millions in 2003 and Powerball in 2010.

The lottery’s governance changed significantly in 2025. Following controversies over online ticket courier services and the bulk buying of number combinations, Texas lawmakers abolished the former Texas Lottery Commission and transferred responsibility for running the lottery to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR), which oversees it today.

Texas Lottery tickets are sold in person only:

In-store: from thousands of licensed retailers across Texas, such as convenience stores, gas stations and supermarkets. Fill out a playslip, use the app to build a play, or ask for a Quick Pick.
No remote sales: state law does not permit the sale of tickets by mail, phone or internet. You must buy from a licensed retailer inside Texas.

Tickets cannot be bought with a credit card; retailers accept cash and, at their discretion, debit or check.

You must be 18 or older to buy a ticket. There is no residency requirement to win, but the ticket has to be purchased in Texas.

How to claim a prize

How you claim depends on the amount:

Up to $599: many retailers will pay these prizes in cash, by check or by money order, though they are not required to.
$600 and above: claimed at a Texas Lottery claim center, by mail, or (for the largest prizes) at the lottery’s Austin headquarters, with your signed ticket and identification.

Sign the back of your ticket as soon as you buy it. All draw-game tickets must be claimed within 180 days of the drawing.

Taxes on winnings

Texas is one of the more tax-friendly states for lottery players: there is no state income tax, so no state tax is withheld or owed on winnings. Only federal tax applies.

For federal tax, the lottery withholds 24% up front on prizes over $5,000 for US citizens and residents (nonresident aliens are withheld at 30% on prizes of $600 or more). Winnings are also reported to the IRS, and the final federal bill can be higher depending on your total income, so it is worth consulting a tax professional for a large win.

Can you stay anonymous?

For large prizes, yes. Under Texas law, winners of $1 million or more can choose to keep their name and address confidential. This option was introduced to protect major winners from unwanted attention, and many jackpot winners use it.

For smaller prizes, winner information can be treated as public record and released on request. If staying private matters to you, it is worth understanding the rules before you claim, and seeking legal advice on options such as claiming through a trust or other legal entity.