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Friday’s $90 million Lotto Max draw will be the largest lottery jackpot prize ever available to win in Canada<\/a> \u2014 may the odds be ever in your favour. <\/p>\n (Even though, statistically, they’re very much not.)<\/p>\n Draws take place every Tuesday and Friday at 10:30 p.m. ET. Tuesday’s previously record-setting $85-million jackpot rolled over after no one claimed it<\/a>, which allowed the prize pool to keep growing.<\/p>\n Lotto Max, a national lottery, announced in April<\/a> that it was increasing its jackpot cap from $80 million to $90 million, but this is the first time it’s actually happened.<\/p>\n So, what are the odds of winning? And how does this compare to past jackpots?<\/p>\n Let’s break it down.<\/p>\n Previously, Canada’s biggest lottery prize was $80.4 million, won by two friends in London, Ont., last December. At the time, the men said they were still overcome with shock that they’d won. (OLG)<\/p>\n What are the odds of winning?<\/p>\n Don’t quit your job in anticipation just yet. <\/p>\n The odds of winning the main jackpot are one in 33 million per $6 play, according to the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation<\/a> (OLG), the Crown agency that manages and conducts gaming and lottery operations across the province. <\/p>\n Let’s put that into perspective. <\/p>\n You’re almost exactly as likely to flip a coin 25 times in a row and have it land on “heads” each time \u2014 an extremely rare probability of one in 33.5 million, according to the scientifically developed coin flip probability calculator.<\/a><\/p>\n Meanwhile, the odds of being struck by lightning in Canada are less than one in a million, according to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.<\/a><\/p>\n And we’re sorry to say that you’re actually far more likely to be killed by an asteroid’s impact on Earth<\/a> on your way to buy the ticket than you are of winning the $90-million jackpot. <\/p>\n How does the $90M compare?<\/p>\n However, despite these odds, people do win the lottery. And the prizes keep growing.<\/p>\n Previously, Canada’s biggest lottery prize was $80.4 million, won by a pair of long-time friends<\/a> in London, Ont., last December. They won the $80-million Lotto Max jackpot and the $403,285.40 second prize in the combination play option.<\/p>\n At the time, the men, identified only as Greg S. and Krys P., said they weren’t sure how they would spend the money.<\/p>\n Before that, the top prize was claimed by a B.C. man who won the $80 million Lotto Max jackpot<\/a> in May 2025. Justin Simporios of Surrey quit his job hours before the news conference where he claimed his cheque.<\/p>\n Lotto Max’s first $80-million draw in September 2024, was split between two winning tickets<\/a> sold in Ontario and Quebec. The first $70-million prize<\/a> was in 2020, and the first $65-million draw was in 2019.<\/a> (It was actually the second time the $65-million winner, a family in Montreal, had won the lottery).<\/p>\n The first Lotto Max draw for $60 million was in 2015<\/a>, after the lottery changed the rules previously capping the jackpot at $50 million. Two years before that, however, a record-breaking $63.4 million Lotto 649 prize<\/a> was split between four tickets.<\/p>\n Some may also recall 2005, when 17 oil and gas workers from Alberta split Canada’s biggest jackpot to date, a whopping $54 million<\/a>. Before that, the previous lottery record was $37.8 million, split between four tickets<\/a> in a Super 7 draw in 2002. <\/p>\n Canada’s first national lottery dates back to 1974, when nine women from Quebec City split the $1-million prize in a lottery held to raise money for the Montreal Olympics.<\/p>\n WATCH | From the archives: Canada’s first national lottery: How to play Canada’s first lottery in 1974<\/p>\n A lottery official says gamblers should write their names on the ticket after purchase. Aired on CBC News on Jan. 12, 1974.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":934510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48],"class_list":["post-934509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=934509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/934510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=934509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=934509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=934509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Greg](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792107502_669_default.jpg\")
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