On the front of almost any convenience store in Mexico there's a green-and-white terminal where people line up on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday afternoons. It doesn't hand out tickets with a number already printed at the factory, like scratch-offs or the traditional raffle stubs known as cachitos: it hands out something different, a combination you choose yourself on the screen. That terminal is the entry point to the Melate lottery, and yet most of the country still calls it, simply, "the lottery" — as if only one existed.
The Melate lottery: what it is and who runs it
The full name matters more than it seems. Melate isn't run by the Lotería Nacional para la Asistencia Pública (LOTENAL), the institution behind "El Gordo" and its pre-printed tickets. Melate is a numbers draw operated by Pronósticos para la Asistencia Pública, a separate federal government body with its own rules and game logic. The confusion is understandable: both institutions put part of what they raise toward social-welfare purposes, both run public draws, and both have been part of Mexican gambling culture for generations. But they're separate agencies with separate draws, and understanding that difference is the first step to knowing what you're actually buying when you play Melate.
How the draw works: numbers, the extra ball, and draw days
Melate's format is 6/56: you choose six different numbers between 1 and 56, and the draw extracts exactly that many balls from a drum. If your six numbers match the ones drawn, you win the top prize — the entire accumulated jackpot. An additional number is also drawn, which isn't part of the main combination but unlocks intermediate prize tiers when it matches alongside several of your correct numbers. Beyond that, there are smaller prizes for matching five, four or three numbers, though without the sixth none of those is the jackpot.
Melate draws happen three times a week: Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, around 9:00 p.m. If you're after more accessible odds, there's an alternative within the same Pronósticos portfolio: Melate Retro, drawn on Tuesdays and Saturdays. And anyone who wants to widen their shot at a prize without switching games can add Revancha and Revanchita, two optional add-ons played alongside the main Melate ticket, not as separate games.
What trips people up when they're new to the game
Two ideas get mixed up constantly among people who are new to Melate, and they're worth untangling before you buy a first ticket. The first is thinking the additional number is a seventh number you can also match on its own, as if it were an extra, independent shot. It isn't: the additional number is drawn separately and only matters once you've already matched several of your six main numbers — it's what separates, say, the five-matches tier from the five-matches-plus-additional tier. Without that base of main matches, having your additional number come up on its own means nothing, no matter how exactly it lines up with what you marked.
The second point of confusion is Revancha and Revanchita. They aren't draws that activate automatically just because you bought a Melate ticket, and they aren't separate games requiring different numbers either: they're additional draws that use the exact combination you already marked on your main ticket, and only the numbers of players who paid the extra fee at purchase time are entered into them. If you didn't check that box, your numbers don't go into those draws even if you played Melate that same night and your combination would have matched theirs. It's worth checking the physical ticket before leaving the terminal — it prints clearly which games got included and which didn't, and it's far easier to fix at the counter than after the draw.
Melate versus the National Lottery: two games, two logics
The difference is worth spelling out because it completely changes the playing experience. In Melate, you choose the combination: you can repeat a birthdate, use a visual pattern on the ticket, or let the system pick for you at random. On Lotería Nacional tickets, the number is already printed at the factory — there's no choice, only the decision of which ticket to buy. These are different philosophies of play, and neither is objectively "better" — it depends on whether you'd rather pick your own numeric fate or trust the one you got at the counter. If you want a deeper comparison of Melate against El Gordo de la Lotería Nacional, we cover it in this full comparison, and if you're trying to decide among the different games within the Pronósticos portfolio itself, the framework is in which Mexican lottery is worth it.
Melate versus Melate Retro: which one makes sense if you want better odds
Within the same Pronósticos portfolio there's a real decision most players never actually stop to make: choosing between Melate and Melate Retro isn't just a matter of which day is more convenient to stop by the terminal. These are two draws with different odds. Melate offers 1 in 32,468,436 odds of winning the top prize; Melate Retro offers 1 in 3,262,623 — considerably more accessible, though it's still pure chance either way. The trade-off is that Melate's jackpots, precisely because they're harder to win, tend to grow larger before someone claims them, while Retro pays out its top prize more often and for generally more modest amounts.
Neither option is "better" in the abstract — it depends on what you're actually after when you buy the ticket. If what motivates you is the shot at a historic jackpot, Melate is the game that has produced those amounts over the years. If you'd rather have a more realistic shot at winning something, even a smaller tier, Retro serves that goal better. Both tickets are sold at the same point of sale, through the same process, and nothing stops you from playing both if your budget allows — they're independent decisions, not mutually exclusive ones.
The odds: what winning actually costs
Here's the figure that matters most before you play: the probability of matching all six Melate numbers and winning the top prize is 1 in 32,468,436. That's the total number of possible combinations when choosing 6 different numbers out of 56, and it's worth holding onto before picturing the jackpot. There's no "overdue" number more likely to come out, and no pattern that shortens the odds: every draw is independent of the last. For the full breakdown by prize tier, see the odds of winning Melate.
What does change, draw after draw, is the size of the jackpot. When nobody matches the top prize, the amount rolls over to the next draw, and keeps rolling until someone wins. The historical record for that rollover reached $639.5 million MXN in draw 2677, back in 2013 — a figure that made national news at the time and is still the reference point whenever people talk about "Melate's biggest jackpot."
How to play and where to buy a ticket
Buying a Melate ticket is straightforward: you go to a Pronósticos point of sale (many convenience stores and pharmacies carry them) or use the official channels, choose your six numbers — or let the machine pick them for you — and decide whether to add Revancha or Revanchita. The full walkthrough, from picking numbers to keeping your ticket safe, is in how to play Melate.
One decision that is in your hands, even though it doesn't change your odds of winning, is how "popular" your numbers are. Combinations like birthdays or visual patterns on the ticket tend to repeat among many players, so if they do come out, the prize gets split among more winners. Choosing high or unintuitive numbers doesn't make you more likely to win, but if you do win, it's less likely you'll have to share it with someone else.
Common mistakes new players make
The most frequent one has nothing to do with which numbers to pick and everything to do with how the ticket gets stored afterward. A Melate ticket depends entirely on the physical paper: there is no alternate record of your play if the code stops being legible. Folding it repeatedly, letting it get wet, or letting the printed code wear off from constant friction in a wallet can make it impossible to claim a legitimate prize, and there's no way to "reconstruct" the combination after the fact if the physical ticket is no longer readable at the point of sale.
Another common mistake is assuming that chasing a number because it's "overdue" improves the odds for the next draw. It's a version of the gambler's fallacy — the idea that chance has a memory and owes somebody a combination after enough draws without showing up. It doesn't work that way: every draw is independent of the last, and no frequency history changes the mathematical odds of the next extraction, no matter how many times the pattern gets reviewed. We cover this and other frequent stumbles, from marking the wrong box on the physical ticket to confusing which draw is being paid for, in common mistakes when playing Melate.
How and when to check the results
Winning numbers are published the same night as the draw, after 9:00 p.m., both on the official Pronósticos site and on the televised broadcast of the extraction. On this site you can check the results page for the most recent combination, the accumulated jackpot, and the history of previous draws without having to look anywhere else. If what you want is a guide on how to read those results, compare your ticket against the winning combination, or understand the publication schedule, we cover it in depth in Melate results.
A bit of history
Melate isn't a new game: the draw series documented on this site starts in December 2007 and already adds up to thousands of draws since then, within the Pronósticos para la Asistencia Pública portfolio. That history includes the record jackpot of $639.5 million MXN already mentioned (draw 2677, 2013), plus frequency patterns that people check out of simple curiosity — which numbers have come out more, which fewer — without any of that changing the odds of the next draw. If that look back at the game's past interests you, we cover it in Melate's history.
What nobody asks about until they win: deadlines and shared tickets
Winning a Melate prize doesn't close the process immediately: there is a limit on how long you have to claim it, and letting that limit pass means losing the right to the prize no matter how legitimate the ticket was or how large the jackpot had grown. The operator sets it in the rules published for each draw, and we are not going to put a figure on it here — the guide on how long you have to claim a Melate prize explains what to ask and where, and it's worth confirming as soon as you know you've won, not weeks later once you've already started making plans with the money.
The amount announced as the accumulated jackpot isn't necessarily the net amount a winner actually receives either. How lottery prizes are taxed in Mexico is set by the official rules, and we won't quote percentages or mechanics here that we can't stand behind. It's a detail that tends to catch people off guard, because the draw's publicity talks about the gross jackpot; if it ever happens to you, confirm the exact terms with the operator or at an authorized point of sale before assuming what would actually reach your hands.
Finally there's the case of tickets bought by several people together, something common among coworkers or family members who split the cost beforehand. Without a clear agreement made before buying, a shared prize can turn into a conflict: the ticket only has one physical holder at the counter, and there's no automatic mechanism that splits the money among everyone who chipped in if there's no way to prove it. It's worth settling that logistics question — who keeps the ticket, how it gets divided, what kind of record exists — before the draw, not after watching the numbers match.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Melate lottery?
It's a 6/56 numbers draw operated by Pronósticos para la Asistencia Pública: you choose six numbers from 1 to 56, and if they match what the drum draws, you win the top prize. It isn't the same as the Lotería Nacional, though colloquially many people use "the lottery" to refer to both.
Is Melate lottery the same as the National Lottery?
No. Melate is run by Pronósticos para la Asistencia Pública and you choose your own numbers; the Lotería Nacional is run by LOTENAL and the numbers come pre-printed on the ticket before you even buy it. They're different institutions and different games.
When are the Melate draws?
Three times a week: Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, around 9:00 p.m. Melate Retro, the sister game with more accessible odds, draws on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
Where do I check Melate results?
On this site's results page, on the official Pronósticos site, or on the televised broadcast of the draw — all available the same night after 9:00 p.m.
Is there a trick to winning Melate?
No. No method, system or number pattern increases the probability of hitting the top prize. The odds of winning the top prize are fixed — 1 in 32,468,436 on every draw — no matter which numbers you choose.
If you decide to play, do it with judgment: generate balanced combinations with MelateBot AI Picks and check results, statistics and the accumulated jackpot whenever you like.
This content is informational and for entertainment purposes. MelateBot is not affiliated with Pronósticos para la Asistencia Pública. Melate is a game of chance: no method predicts, guarantees or increases the odds of obtaining the winning numbers. Please play responsibly.