Takarakuji Lotteries

Where you can buy tickets

Takarakuji are sold in more places than most visitors expect. The classic outlets are banks such as Mizuho Bank and the lottery stalls set up in shopping districts, stations and shopping centers¹. Beyond those, you will find tickets at tobacco shops, liquor shops, supermarkets, station kiosks, and post offices in areas that have no dedicated stall¹. Some bank ATMs sell number-selection tickets too, and so do convenience stores³.

If you want to buy in person, the practical thing to know is that sales hours differ by booth, so check the handling hours for the specific booth you plan to visit through the booth map⁴. There is no single national opening time.

The official site is the other main channel. It sells ordinary lotteries such as Jumbo Takarakuji, plus Loto, Bingo 5, Numbers and Quick One⁵. It is open in principle all year round, 24 hours a day⁶. Ordinary tickets such as Jumbo can be bought from the reservation sale start date until 23:50 on the sale end date, while number-selection lotteries and Kisekae Koo-chan can be bought around the clock between their sale start and sale end times⁷.

To buy online you register member information, a payment method, and a bank account to receive prizes³. Both the payment method and the receiving account must be in your own name⁸. You can pay by credit card or carrier payment, and you can also use Takarakuji points or prize money the site is already holding for you⁹. You can put several different lotteries in one cart and buy them together⁵.

One restriction matters for anyone outside Japan: online purchase is limited to individual residents of Japan aged 20 or over, and buying from overseas is not possible, including for eligible buyers who are temporarily abroad on a trip².

Draw time and where number-selection draws take place

Number-selection draws start at 18:45 JST¹. They are normally held at the Takarakuji Dream Hall in Chuo Ward, Tokyo, and sometimes at the Osaka Takarakuji Dream Hall in Naniwa Ward, Osaka¹.

Loto 6 follows the same pattern: as a rule the draw is at the Tokyo Takarakuji Dream Hall, and at the Osaka Takarakuji Dream Hall for limited periods¹⁰. Bingo 5 is held in principle at the Tokyo Takarakuji Dream Hall and for limited periods at the Osaka hall, with live internet streaming, so you can watch without being there¹¹.

On the official site, the timing of a purchase affects what you see. Purchases made from 18:20 to 8:00 the next day on a draw day, or from 19:50 to 8:00 the next day on a non-draw day, are shown as issuance reserved and change to waiting for draw after 8:00 the next morning⁷. The purchase date and order time shown in your purchase history can also appear later than the moment you clicked, depending on when processing completes: after 23:50 for ordinary tickets such as Jumbo and Quick One, and after 18:20 for number-selection lotteries and Kisekae Koo-chan⁷. Tickets bought during a reservation period are settled on the sale start date⁷.

Claiming prizes at retail outlets

How much you can collect over the counter depends on the booth. Counters displaying the JPY 100,000 mark pay prizes of JPY 100,000 or less per winning or per bet, while ordinary outlets pay up to JPY 10,000³. In practice that means up to JPY 10,000 at ordinary sales outlets, JPY 50,000 at booths displaying a JPY 50,000 mark, and JPY 100,000 at booths displaying a JPY 100,000 mark¹.

If the prize is above JPY 50,000, it must be collected at a Mizuho Bank counter, with some exceptions³. So a mid-sized win often means a trip to the bank rather than the booth where you bought the ticket.

What you need to bring scales with the amount¹:

For cash claims over JPY 100,000, photo ID plus paperwork is required under the rules on preventing transfer of criminal proceeds¹. Up to JPY 1,000,000 can be paid the same day; larger amounts take several days to process¹.

Prizes expire one year after the draw date, meaning the day before the first anniversary, or the next business day if that falls on a bank holiday¹. After that you can no longer collect.

Online purchases and how prizes are paid

Buying online changes how you receive a win, and the first thing to understand is that no ticket is posted to you. Tickets bought on the official site are not mailed to the customer but held by the site as electronic records⁵. You check your numbers any time from purchase history or lottery results, and procedures such as receiving winnings are done in My Page⁵.

Prizes are paid by bank transfer to the account you registered³. For number-selection lotteries, winnings of JPY 10,000 or more are in principle transferred automatically within about one week from the next business day after the draw¹². For Quick One, the same applies from the next business day after you played¹². Prizes under JPY 10,000 are in principle reflected in My Page as held winnings the next business day after the draw¹².

Held winnings do not sit there forever. When the combined total of prize money and held prize money reaches JPY 10,000 or more, it is transferred automatically to your registered account¹³. There is also a semiannual transfer in March and September, and a transfer on request if you ask for one¹³. If your held winnings under JPY 10,000 pass JPY 10,000 during a period, they are transferred within about one week from September 24¹². During Silver Week, prize reflection and transfers may take longer than usual⁶.

If you buy number-selection tickets by ATM or online banking rather than the official site, prizes are transferred to the purchase account two business days after the draw¹.

Payout rate and how it compares

Takarakuji return 45.7% of sales as prizes¹. Public sports racing, meaning keirin, boat racing, auto racing and local horse racing, returns 74.8%¹. The soccer lottery, toto, returns 49.6%¹.

The comparison is not quite as simple as those three numbers suggest, because of how tax is treated. Public sports racing has an effective return rate of 58.5% once the tax treatment difference is taken into account¹. Public sports also carry a structural problem for anyone betting more than one race: betting three races in one day gives 75% x 75% x 75%, which is 42.2%, below the lottery prize rate of 45.7%¹⁴. Horse racing targets a payout of 70 to 80 percent of the betting pool¹⁵, and across public racing sports 75% of sales goes to payouts to winning bettors, with the rest covering grants and running costs¹⁶.

For toto, the prize rate is 49.6%, on sales of JPY 90.5 billion and payouts of JPY 44.9 billion, with no income tax on payouts, giving an effective payout rate of 49.6%¹⁷.

Prize sizes and event lotteries

Top prizes vary a lot by game. At event lotteries held at national event venues, the first prize is usually JPY 100,000, paid on the spot at the venue windows¹.

The bigger numbers come from jumbo and number-selection lotteries. In August 2010, the Takarakuji day commemorative lottery, the 591st national autonomous draw, was the first ordinary lottery other than a jumbo with a first prize of JPY 200,000,000¹⁸. In November 2013, the year-end jumbo, the 651st national autonomous draw, had a first prize of JPY 500,000,000, the first for a jumbo, and JPY 700,000,000 with before and after prizes of JPY 100,000,000 each¹⁸. In November 2015, the 688th national autonomous draw had a first prize of JPY 700,000,000, and JPY 1,000,000,000 with before and after prizes of JPY 150,000,000 each, the first 10-digit yen prize in takarakuji history¹⁸. Loto 7's 7th draw produced a first prize of JPY 800,000,000, the first in takarakuji history, with three winning tickets at once after five consecutive carryovers¹⁸.

Points, subscriptions and other practical details

Takarakuji points are earned by buying tickets on the official site, entering member-only campaigns, or buying tickets at a booth¹⁹. The rate is 1 point per JPY 100 spent⁶. Points can be used both on the official site and at Takarakuji booths¹⁹. To use the point card or mobile point card you need to be registered as a member of the official site¹⁹. At a booth, present the mobile point card or the point card when you buy¹⁹. The point card itself is mailed to the address registered on the official site after the procedure is completed²⁰, and if you register as a new member through the official app, you need to register your address including the house number to have one issued²⁰. Booths where points can be used are listed in the booth search¹⁹.

The official site also supports continuous purchase at a set period and frequency, and advance reservation of ordinary tickets such as Jumbo before sales start⁶.

If you want to buy jumbo lotteries by mail, that is possible through Mizuho Bank's mail order desk¹. You send the following:

• The ticket price
• A return envelope
• An application form

Payment can be made in cash, by ordinary exchange, by fixed-amount exchange, or with winning tickets¹. Under-20s cannot buy this way¹.

One change to be aware of if you pay by credit card on the official site: the monthly purchase limit for Life Card, Credit Saison and Orient Corporation cards is a maximum of JPY 100,000, down from a maximum of JPY 300,000, in force from October 29, 2026²¹. Credit cards with VISA, Mastercard or JCB brands are accepted regardless of issuer, a change that took effect in November 2020¹.

For a wider look at what gambling is and is not allowed in the country, see Can I Gamble in Japan?, and for the number-selection games in more detail, see Loto 6, Loto 7 and Mini Loto: How to Play.