Where do people in Germany play the lottery the most?
A straightforward breakdown. 16 German states, 6aus49 betting volume per year, with per-capita and income-share comparisons.
The map
Click a state to open its detail page with all figures, large wins and savings rate. Each toggle shows a different metric on the map.
Note: Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen and Saarland are slightly enlarged for readability.
Per-capita values are averaged over all residents, including infants, children and non-players. People who actually play the lottery spend significantly more on average.
Saarland is the clear outlier in this picture. Per capita, residents spend 57 euros a year on Lotto 6aus49, well above every other state. Most other states sit between 35 and 47 euros.
North Rhine-Westphalia leads absolute betting volume at 778 million euros a year, followed by Bavaria with 516 million and Baden-Württemberg with 443 million. At the bottom sits Bremen with 25 million euros, just below sparsely populated Saarland with 56 million.
In its share of disposable income, Saarland leads again with 0.22 percent of every euro earned, followed by Saxony-Anhalt at 0.18 percent. Bavaria comes last with 0.12 percent. Bavarian incomes are high, the lottery share correspondingly small.
Relative to disposable income
Per-capita figures alone do not tell the full story. Spending 57 euros a year on the lottery in Munich leaves a lot of income untouched. Spending 57 euros in Saarland eats into a bigger share of income. This metric folds that in: how many cents of every euro earned go to the lottery?
A value of 0.22 percent means 2.20 euros out of every 1,000 euros of income go to the lottery. Small numbers sound bigger and big numbers sound smaller when you read them without context. That is why we show this comparison too.
Highest share of disposable income
- Saarland 0,22 %
- Sachsen-Anhalt 0,18 %
- Brandenburg 0,16 %
- Niedersachsen 0,16 %
- Nordrhein-Westfalen 0,16 %
Relative to disposable income, states with lower median incomes spend proportionally more on the lottery. The pattern has held up for decades.
Where luck happens to land
Number of large wins of one million euros or more per million inhabitants. A single lottery draw is chance, and chance spreads unevenly over short time spans. If one state sees five million-euro wins in a year and the next state sees three, that says little about the region's luck and a lot about small samples in statistics. Still, it is interesting to see where luck actually landed. We show the numbers without interpreting them.
A small note on counting: large wins are assigned to the state where the ticket was bought, not the winner's home address. Someone vacationing in Bavaria who plays and wins counts in the Bavarian statistics, even if they live in Hamburg.
In 2024, Saarland saw more million-euro wins per inhabitant than anywhere else. Next year it can be somewhere else. Luck does not accumulate, it scatters.
All 16 German states at a glance
| State | Per capita (€) | Betting volume (€ million) | Share of income (%) | Large wins per million inh. | Savings rate (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saarland | 57 | 56 | 0,22 | 4,0 | 9,0 |
| Schleswig-Holstein | 47 | 138 | 0,16 | 1,7 | 11,0 |
| Niedersachsen | 45 | 370 ≈ | 0,16 | 2,2 | 10,5 |
| Sachsen-Anhalt | 45 | 95 | 0,18 | 1,4 | 6,6 |
| Hessen | 43 | 274 | 0,15 | 1,7 | 11,5 |
| Nordrhein-Westfalen | 43 | 778 | 0,16 | 3,2 | 10,0 |
| Brandenburg | 42 | 108 | 0,16 | 1,9 | 8,5 |
| Rheinland-Pfalz | 41 | 172 | 0,15 | 1,7 | 10,5 |
| Thüringen | 41 | 84 | 0,16 | 1,9 | 7,5 |
| Sachsen | 40 | 160 | 0,15 | 3,0 | 7,0 |
| Baden-Württemberg | 39 | 443 | 0,13 | 3,9 | 12,5 |
| Bayern | 39 | 516 | 0,12 | 2,2 | 12,9 |
| Berlin | 39 | 145 | 0,15 | 1,3 | 8,0 |
| Hamburg | 39 | 75 | 0,13 | 3,1 | 11,5 |
| Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | 38 | 60 | 0,15 | 2,5 | 7,0 |
| Bremen | 35 | 25 | 0,13 | 2,8 | 9,5 |
Sources
Betting volume from the annual reports and financial statements of the 16 state lottery companies for 2024. Population: Destatis, 2024. Disposable income: VGRdL, 2023. Savings rate: VGRdL, 2022. The value for Lower Saxony is derived from the DLTB totals consistency.