Customer Information Regarding GST Changes

As lottery revenues are subject to GST, the increase in the GST rate would have a significant impact on the profit available from our games to transfer to the NZ Lottery Grants Board if we do not change our pricing.

We are proud to return more than $150 million in profits to the New Zealand community via lottery grants every year, and we want to continue this record of giving back.

Rather than change the price on all of our games, which would make for really complicated pricing, we are absorbing the GST increase into one game – Powerball – to make the change simpler for you, our customers. 

This means that the cost of Powerball changed from 50 cents to 60 cents per line from 3 October 2010.

Our most popular game, Lotto, has not changed its price – and remains 60 cents a line or $6 for a Basic Lucky Dip.

Powerball’s Getting Bigger!

We realise that Powerball players are funding most of the GST increase, so to balance that, we’ve put an additional $1 million into the Powerball First Division prize pool from the first draw after the price increase – this Saturday, 9 October.

Instead of a prize offer of $23 million, this week's jackpot up for grabs is a massive $24 million! 

And That’s Not All...

Once the Powerball jackpot has been won after 9 October, we’ll be putting that extra $1 million back in again right from the start of each and every jackpot run:

Powerball First Division will start at $4 million!

This higher starting point means that the jackpot will grow to bigger numbers even faster, which will be popular with our customers who like playing Powerball when its jackpot gets high.

There are a couple more smaller changes being made to account for the GST increase – for more information, please download the information leaflet from this page.