How to Play and Win Sportstake 8
Your aim in Sportstake 8 is to correctly predict the first-half and second-half outcomes of a set of soccer fixtures. Three fixture lists are published every week and eight matches are included in each list. You have to select which team will win each half of the fixture, so you make 16 predictions in total. If you predict 13 or more outcomes correctly, you win a prize.
You can take part in the game - which is also known as Soccer 8 - online or in-store. Take a look at the guide below to find out how to play Sportstake 8.
Get a fixture list
The first step is to get a fixture list for the next round of Sportstake 8 games. Midweek lists are published on the Sportstake 8 Fixtures page every Monday, and weekend lists are published every Friday. You can also obtain fixture lists from any National Lottery retailer.
There are always eight fixtures, featuring soccer matches from various competitions around the world. Each match is on the list twice - once relating to the first half and once to the second half.
Make Your Predictions
You must predict 16 outcomes in Sportstake 8, one for each half of the eight featured games. If you play online, log in to your account and select whether you think the home team or away team will win each half, or whether it will be a draw.
You can also fill out a betslip in-store by marking your prediction in the applicable box: [1], [X] or [2] for every fixture on the list. Box [1] indicates a home win, box [X] indicates a draw, and box [2] indicates an away win. Remember that the home team comes first on the list.
Consider a Propick
If you'd rather not make your own predictions, you can opt for a Propick instead. This will automatically generate a set of predictions for you to play in the next round. Select the Propick option or just tell the cashier you want to play this way.
There are two advantages to the Propick option. It makes it much quicker to take part and there is a statistical element to the predictions it generates. They are not entirely random, as the system also takes teams' past form into account. Go to the Propick page for more information.
Choose how many boards to play
You can make multiple predictions for upcoming Sportstake 8 fixtures. There are a couple of ways to do this. One method is to move on to another board and fill out another set of predictions.
Alternatively, you can select more than one outcome for a fixture on the same board. For example, you can mark a home win and a draw for the same fixture, or even mark all three outcomes. You must mark the Multi-Play box if you use this method.
Purchase your tickets
It costs R2 per entry to play Sportstake 8. If you select the Multi-Play option, the total cost increases for each extra prediction you add to your betslip. The maximum you can spend on a single ticket is R2,000.
You'll need to get your entries in before the closing time for that particular game. If you have played in-store, keep your ticket safe and wait for the matches to take place. If you're an online player, you can just log in to your account to see if you are a winner.
How Multi-Play Works
When you add the Multi-Play option to your betslip, it allows you to cover more of the possible outcomes. If you pick one outcome for a particular half, this can be referred to as a single, while two would be a double and three a triple.
A particular half can only end up as a home win, draw or away win, but if you select all three options on your ticket it is guaranteed that one of them will be correct. It is a good way to increase your chances of winning a prize, especially for those matches which are too close to call.
When you go for a Multi-Play, you pay R2 for each possible combination of your chosen outcomes. For example, if you pick one triple, each of the three outcomes for that particular match will be combined with the other 15 predictions on the game board.
If you select one triple and 15 home wins, for instance, you would end up with three boards: one with 16 home wins; one with a draw and 15 home wins; and one with an away win and 15 home wins.
The total cost of the three boards would be R6. If you were to add one more triple, the number of boards would increase to nine and the cost of your bet would be R18. The cost would carry on escalating as you add more Multi-Play bets.
How to Win Sportstake 8
You win Sportstake 8 prizes by correctly predicting the first-half and second-half outcomes of the eight fixtures. Remember that the result of the overall match does not matter in Sportstake 8, only what happens in each half. This differs from Sportstake 13, which is only concerned with the final result.
For example, if the first half of a match ends 2-0 to the home team, that counts as a home win. For the purposes of Sportstake, the scoreline then resets. If each team goes on to score one goal in the second half, the second-half result would go down as a draw. The fact that the final match score is 3-1 is irrelevant.
There are no set prize amounts on Sportstake 8, but you are guaranteed a payout for matching 13 or more outcomes out of 16. A percentage of the prize pool is allocated to each of the four prize divisions. The following table shows how much is given to each category.
| Prize Division | Correct Predictions | Prize Pool Percentage | Odds of Winning | Prize Payout in Last Draw | Average Payout Since 2019 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 16 | 40% | 1 in 43,046,721 | R185,000.00 | R675,665.14 |
| 2 | 15 | 20% | 1 in 14,384,907 | R0.00 | R9,270.10 |
| 3 | 14 | 15% | 1 in 4,782,969 | R4,764.50 | R8,527.93 |
| 4 | 13 | 25% | 1 in 1,594,323 | R667.30 | R4,756.15 |
| The overall odds of winning are approximately 1 in 1.07 million | |||||
If there are no jackpot winners, the Division 1 prize fund will roll over into the prize fund for the next round of fixtures. This will continue to happen until the jackpot is won.
If there are no winners of the Match 15 division, the prize fund will be split equally between the Match 14 and Match 13 prize division winners. If there are no winners of the Match 14 division, the full prize fund will be given to the Match 13 division winners.
In the event that there are no winners in the Match 13 division, the prize fund will roll to the jackpot division (Match 16) in the next round of fixtures.
Odds of Winning
The overall odds of winning a prize are approximately 1 in 1,076,370 based on making random predictions. However, the outcome of a soccer match is not as random as the outcome of a lottery, as there are other factors at play, such as the ability of the competing teams. The odds presented on this page should therefore only be used as a guide to illustrate the chances of predicting the outcomes correctly at random.
