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A relative of the victim alerted police, spokesperson Colonel McIntosh Polela said.
The 61-year-old Eastern Cape woman went to Johannesburg to meet people who told her she had won R57.4m in the UK lottery.
"The pensioner apparently refused to believe members of her family who told her that this was a scam," Polela said.
A Hawks team went to the hotel where the meeting was to take place.
On her arrival at the hotel, the woman was told by a so-called lottery official to pay R57 000 to him so he could negotiate a tax discount on her winnings.
Before her departure from Mthatha, the woman had already paid R8 350 into a bank account, purportedly fees required for her to claim her winnings.
In the Johannesburg hotel room the woman and her daughter, who accompanied her, were shown stacks of "cash" in a portable safe.
"In fact, these were papers neatly covered with R100 notes on each side to look like real cash," Polela said.
One man was arrested in the room, and his accomplice at reception. Both were foreign nationals.
They would appear in the Kempton Park Magistrate's Court on Friday on fraud charges.
