If you play Lotto Max, there are some changes coming that are worth knowing about before you buy your next ticket.
New rules take effect with the April 14 draw, and the biggest shift is in how a single ticket works. According to Loto-Québec, starting Tuesday, each $6 participation will include four selections of seven numbers instead of the current setup, which gives you three selections for $5.
So yes, the price is going up by a dollar — but you’re also getting more chances to win with every single purchase.
The number pool is expanding too. Instead of picking from 1 to 50, players will now choose from 1 to 52. That might sound like it makes things harder, but the overall odds of winning any prize actually improve slightly, going from 1 in 7.0 to 1 in 5.8 per participation.
The maximum jackpot is also getting a bump, rising from $80 million to $90 million. The odds of hitting the top prize stay the same (roughly 1 in 33 million), but there’s more money on the table when someone does.
One of the more interesting additions is the new MAXPLUS draws. After each main draw, a series of $100,000 prizes will be up for grabs, with the number of available prizes tied to the size of the jackpot. If the top prize sits at $90 million, that means up to 90 separate $100,000 MAXPLUS prizes could be awarded in the same draw. At a $20 million jackpot, you’d be looking at around 20 of them.
The changes come from the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation, which governs Lotto Max across Canada. Since Lotto Max launched in Quebec in 2009, players in the province have won more than $4 billion through the game.
The first draw under the new rules is Tuesday, April 14.