Canada Lotto 6/49
Canada Lotto 6/49 offers a minimum jackpot of $5 million and also guarantees that at least one player will become a millionaire in every draw. The winning Lotto 6/49 numbers are drawn every Wednesday and Saturday night and you can see the latest results straight away. Find out more about Canada’s longest-running national lottery game.
How to Play Lotto 6/49
Lotto 6/49 is an easy game to enjoy. Draws are held in Toronto at 11:05pm ET and you just need to follow the steps below to take part:
- Choose six numbers between 1 and 49
- Fill out one number grid for every line you want to play
- Decide how many draws to enter in advance. You can subscribe to never miss a draw
- Purchase your entries
The cost of entry is $3 and for each line that you play, you also receive an entry into the Guaranteed Prize Draw. Your entry for this draw consists of an automatically generated ten-digit code, so you do not select any numbers. The code will be displayed on your ticket.
Lotto 6/49 tickets are available from authorised retailers across Canada, but the game can also be enjoyed around the world thanks to online betting services such as Jackpot.com. This is a way to choose numbers and wager on the results without being located in the country where a game is staged - all the same prizes are still available and you will be notified straight away if you win.
Lotto 6/49 Prizes
Lotto 6/49 has seven prize tiers in total and you win by matching two or more main numbers. To win the jackpot, all six of your numbers must be the same as the winning numbers drawn.
There is also a Bonus Number in every draw. This is selected from the 43 numbers that are left after the six main numbers have been drawn. The value of your prize is increased if you match the Bonus alongside two or five main numbers.
Some of the prizes are fixed awards, while others are calculated as a percentage of the prize fund and split between all the winners in that category. The table below shows all the prize categories and the odds of winning in each one.
| Prize Category | Odds of Winning | Prive Value | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Match 6 | 1 in 13,983,816 | 79.5% of the prize fund | ||
| Match 5 + Bonus | 1 in 2,330,636 | 6% of the prize fund | ||
| Match 5 | 1 in 55,492 | 5% of the prize fund | ||
| Match 4 | 1 in 1,033 | 9.5% of the prize fund | ||
| Match 3 | 1 in 56.7 | $10 | ||
| Match 2 + Bonus | 1 in 81.2 | $5 | ||
| Match 2 | 1 in 8.3 | Free Play | ||
| The overall odds of winning a prize are 1 in 6.6 | ||||
The jackpot starts at $5 million and can quickly increase in value due to rollovers. The game has no rollover limit or jackpot cap, so it will keep rolling until someone matches all six main numbers, meaning that there is the potential to win huge prizes. The biggest Lotto 6/49 jackpot ever recorded came on Saturday 17th October 2015 when Zhe Wang of Mississauga, Ontario, won $64 million, eventually collecting her winnings the following March.
The prize for the Guaranteed Prize Draw is $1 million. You win if the code on your ticket exactly matches the one drawn on the night, with all the numbers in the same places. On occasion, special draws may be held in which more prizes are made available. The odds of winning in the Guaranteed Prize Draw are entirely dependent on how many people have bought tickets for that draw.
Additional Games
Each of the different provinces that play Lotto 6/49 offer additional games you can enter whilst you are buying your ticket for the main draw. Each of these games offers more chances to win big prizes for a small fee:
- Ontario Encore - Offers a top prize of $1 million for exactly matching a seven-digit code, with 21 other prizes distributed for matching different combinations of the numbers.
- British Columbia Extra – You must match four automatically generated numbers in order to win $500,000.
- Quebec Extra – Requires you to match seven numbers to win $1 million
- Western Canada Extra– Also requires you to match seven numbers to win a top prize of $250,000.
- Atlantic Tag – This supplementary game from the Atlantic Lottery costs $1 and gives you the chance to win $100,000 by matching a six-digit code in the exact order it is drawn.