Lottery Odds

Background on our 6/49 Lotteries and their odds:

In Canada, we have our national lotteries: we have the 6/49 and Super 7 games which are the ones with the largest prizes. The 6/49 prize, at $2 a ticket, will start at $4,000,000 and keep going up if no one wins. It goes up often because your odds of winning with a ticket are 1 in 13,983,816. The lowest prize for the Super 7 is $2,500,000 and also keeps growing until someone wins, this also happens alot. The odds for the Super 7 are 1 in 62,891,499 but for your $2 you get two extra sets of numbers so the odds are actually 1 in 20,963,833 (62,891,499 divided by 3).

Living in Ontario we also have provincial lotteries: Lottario is a game that costs only a buck to play but has a much smaller prize of $250,000. The odds are 1 in 8,145,061 to win because the set that the six winning numbers are drawn from is 1 to 45 instead of 1 to 49, and you also get an extra set of random numbers with your purchase and so the odds are officially given as 1 in 4,072,530.5 (8,145,061 divided by two). With Lottario, the pot also increases each draw no one wins.

My favorite lottery game is the Ontario 49 because the prize is $1,000,000 and the cost is only 50 cents. The odds for the Ontario 49 are the same as the 6/49 but because the price is 1/4 the price of a 6/49 ticket you can play combinations or wheels without breaking your budget. You can visit the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) for more info on Canadian and Ontario Government lotteries.

Have a look below at the odds for a 6/49 game: