Buying Toto Online

If you live in Japan and want to bet on J.League soccer matches or other sports through the official sports lottery, you no longer need to visit a lottery booth. Everything except a few counter-only products can be bought from your phone or computer, paid straight from a Japanese bank account, and settled automatically when the results come in. This page explains the two official online routes, what you can buy through each, when sales open and close, and how your money moves in and out.

Buying toto and BIG online: the two official routes

There are exactly two official ways to buy sports lottery tickets online in Japan, and both are run or sanctioned by the sports promotion lottery operator itself.

The first route is the official site, toto-dream.com. To buy there with online payment or convenience store payment, you must join Club toto, the site's free membership service⁵. Once you are a member, you can buy tickets around the clock, check your purchase history, and have winnings transferred to your bank account automatically.

The second route is through a partner site. The official operator links out to nine partners for online purchase: Rakuten Bank, PayPay Bank, Yahoo! toto, Rakuten toto, SMBC toto, au PAY toto, Docomo SMTB Net Bank, Jibun Bank and Docomo Sports Lottery¹. Each partner site runs its own purchase flow, tied to an account at that bank or service. BIG, for example, can be bought through the Rakuten Bank and Jibun Bank partner sites as well as Yahoo! toto⁶.

A third option sits halfway between online and offline: on the official site you can make a purchase reservation and then pay and pick up at a convenience store or lottery counter. For WINNER, the lottery counter route works without member registration, though no Club toto points are earned that way; convenience store payment requires Club toto registration and advance acceptance of payment on the site⁷. BIG, toto and DUNK cannot be reserved on the official site for counter purchase, so those are online-payment-only or bought in person at the counter⁸.

If you prefer the traditional route, toto is still sold at retail lottery shops displaying the sports toto logo, where you fill in your predictions on a marksheet, hand it to the staff and receive your ticket⁹. Convenience stores also sell toto during set hours¹⁰. But for most people with a Japanese bank account, the online routes are simpler.

Who can buy online: residency, age and bank account requirements

Online sports lottery purchase in Japan is limited in three ways: age, residency and banking.

Age. You must be 19 or older to buy or receive toto, BIG, WINNER or DUNK tickets, and prizes cannot be paid to anyone under 19⁴. Online sales enforce this with age verification at member registration and identity verification at the time of purchase¹¹. Note the contrast with other Japanese lotteries: the takarakuji official site limits online purchase to people aged 20 or over¹², so the sports lottery's 19 threshold is its own rule.

Residency. Purchases from outside Japan are not accepted. The terms state plainly that buying from overseas is not possible¹³, and the same rule applies to the takarakuji official site, which blocks online purchase even for eligible buyers who are temporarily abroad on travel¹². In practice this means you need to be physically in Japan when you buy.

Banking. To join Club toto you need an eligible bank account that can be used on the site, registered for internet banking, and you must be 19 or older¹⁴. Partner sites each require their own account: the SMBC toto site draws from a Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation account, the Rakuten Bank toto site from a Rakuten Bank account, and the au jibun bank toto site from an au Jibun Bank account¹⁵.

For foreign residents of Japan with a Japanese bank account, these routes are open on the same terms as for citizens. Short-term visitors without a Japanese bank account cannot use them, and would need to buy at a shop counter in person instead.

Club toto: free membership on the official site

Club toto is the membership service of the official site, and it costs nothing: no joining fee and no annual fee⁵. Membership is what unlocks purchase on toto-dream.com with online payment or convenience store payment for toto, BIG, DUNK and WINNER alike¹⁶.

What you get for joining:

• Buying at any hour. Members can buy sports lottery tickets 24 hours a day on the site, excluding system maintenance times¹⁹.
• Points. You earn 1 point for every JPY 100 of sports lottery purchases, at stores and on the official site, and points can be used to enter the points program. Points expire on December 31 of the third year including the year they were earned. Purchases made through the partner sites (Rakuten Bank, PayPay Bank, Yahoo! toto, Rakuten toto, SMBC Direct, au PAY toto, SBI Sumishin Net Bank, Jibun Bank and Docomo sports lottery) do not earn points²⁰.
• Automatic prize transfer. Winnings on tickets bought on the site go straight to your bank account, so there is nothing to claim and no risk of forgetting¹⁹.
• Scheduled purchase. The rakuraku purchase service, described later on this page, lets members reserve a fixed amount every round²¹.

Joining is quick if you already hold an eligible internet banking account: anyone with such an account who is 19 or older can complete enrollment immediately online¹⁴. If you apply by mail for a membership card, delivery takes about two to three weeks¹⁴.

One point worth knowing: at a physical lottery counter, anyone can buy WINNER whether or not they are a Club toto member⁸. Membership only gates purchases made through the site itself.

Partner bank sites: buying through your own bank

If you already do your daily banking with one of the partner institutions, buying through its site can be the most convenient route, because payment and prizes both flow through the account you already have.

The nine partner sites linked from the official operator are¹:

The account details come from the official refund guidance, which specifies where winnings are transferred for each site: the Rakuten toto site pays winnings to the credit card payment account or a Rakuten Bank account, the au PAY toto site to the account registered there, and so on¹⁵. In other words, the account you pay from is the account your winnings return to.

Across the wider official lottery system, five internet banking sales sites allow purchase 24 hours a day²³. The partner route is fully official: the operator's own pages link directly to each partner site for both toto and BIG purchases¹.

Games offered online: BIG, toto and WINNER

The sports lottery comes in three main types: WINNER, toto and BIG²⁰. DUNK, the basketball version, is also sold online. Here is what each looks like and how it is offered online.

toto is the classic soccer pools game: you predict the result (home win, draw or away win) of a set of designated J.League and other matches. Each bet costs JPY 100³, and the first prize is capped at JPY 100,000,000, rising to a maximum of JPY 500,000,000 when a carryover occurs²⁴. You can read more about how the game works on our toto soccer pools page.

BIG is the random-draw version: the computer picks your predictions for you, so no soccer knowledge is needed. BIG and its larger sibling MEGA BIG are sold on the official site and through partner sites⁶. See our BIG and MEGA BIG page for the game itself.

WINNER is a single-match prediction game. It can be bought on the official site with online payment, and it can be bought together with BIG, toto and DUNK in one combined purchase⁸. One wrinkle: if you use a Club toto member card for BIG, toto or DUNK purchases and want to reserve WINNER as well, you must complete the advance online registration procedure on the site first⁷. Our WINNER page covers the game in detail.

DUNK requires Club toto membership for purchase on the official site via online payment or convenience store payment, just like the others¹⁷. Our DUNK basketball lottery page explains the game.

A few product gaps exist on partner sites. On Yahoo! toto, only the PC version offers totoGOAL3 and totoGOAL2, and the mobile and smartphone versions carry no toto products at all²⁵. And as noted earlier, BIG, toto and DUNK cannot be reserved on the official site for counter purchase; if you want to pay at a counter, you buy in person⁸.

When you can buy: sales hours and maintenance windows

Online sales on the official site run 24 hours a day during each round's sales period, except during system maintenance². The partner bank sites likewise allow purchase around the clock²³.

What matters more is the cutoff, and this depends on how you pay and which matches are on the ticket:

• Online payment on the official site: for rounds whose designated matches are outside the J.League, sales close at 19:00 on the final sales day; for J.League rounds, the cutoff is 10 minutes before the kickoff of the first designated match¹⁶.
• Convenience store payment reserved on the official site: 17:10 on the final sales day for non-J.League rounds, or up to 120 minutes before the first designated match kickoff².
• Convenience store terminals: toto can be bought at convenience stores between 8:00 and 22:30, with sales closing at 11:30 AM on the final sales day¹⁰.
• Lottery shops: shops are generally open 8:00 to 23:00, though hours vary by store, and sales close at 12:00 noon on the final day⁹.

The operator notes that sales periods and cutoff times can change, so it is worth checking the information page for the specific round you want to bet on².

Paying and getting paid: account debit and automatic prize transfer

The money flow online is simple in both directions.

Paying. When you buy on the official site or a partner site, the purchase amount is debited from the bank account linked to that site. There is no cash handling and no ticket to keep safe; your purchase record lives in your member page, where you can check the tickets you have bought¹⁸.

Getting paid. Winnings from internet purchases are transferred automatically to your bank account. This applies to purchases on the official site, including those paid at a convenience store after reserving online²⁷, and to purchases on each partner site, paid into the account registered there¹⁵. The automatic transfer does not apply to tickets bought elsewhere, such as at a shop counter.

For toto internet purchases specifically, winnings are in principle transferred automatically three business days after the payout start date of the winnings²⁹. So once results are confirmed and payouts begin, the money lands in your account within a few business days without any action from you.

For comparison, if you hold a winning paper ticket bought at a shop, the process is slower. Winnings handled through agent stores are transferred to your designated account about ten to twenty days after the prescribed procedures³⁰. For winnings over JPY 500,000, procedures are done at a credit union that handles sports lottery, and you can choose to receive the money directly at the counter 12 business days later or by transfer to a designated account³⁰. Smaller prizes, up to JPY 100,000 per ticket, can be received at booths, credit unions or Seven-Eleven, with Seven-Eleven capped at JPY 15,000 and some booths capping at JPY 10,000 or JPY 50,000 per ticket²⁰.

One rule to keep in mind before you confirm any purchase: once the purchase process is completed, it cannot be canceled or changed³¹. Check your selections and amount before you press the button.

How to check whether you won

The official site gives you two ways to check results, depending on where you bought.

If you bought online on the official site: log in to Club toto from the login button at the top right of the page, click purchase history and winning confirmation on the top page, then select detail confirmation. You can filter by product, purchase period and winning result, which makes it easy to see at a glance which of your tickets won³².

If you bought at a store: use the winning confirmation button on the top page of the site. Select the lottery type and draw number, enter the reference number printed on your ticket, and click display result³². Club toto members who bought at a store can also check through the member menu on the official site³⁴.

Because online purchases pay winnings automatically, checking results is mostly for curiosity: the money arrives whether or not you log in.

Rakuraku purchase: buying every round automatically

For members who want to play regularly without logging in each round, the official site offers rakuraku purchase, a scheduled purchase service. You reserve a fixed amount in advance, and the service buys that amount for you every round²¹. It started in February 2013 as a way to let players set a fixed amount in advance and receive tickets each round automatically²⁵.

The eligible games for rakuraku purchase are BIG, toto and DUNK²¹. When you win, the prize is transferred automatically to your designated bank account, just as with ordinary online purchases²¹.

This suits players who follow the J.League season week in and week out and want the same stake every round. Since purchases cannot be canceled once processed³¹, a scheduled purchase means committing to that amount for each round you have reserved, so set the figure with that in mind.