Lotto 6/49

About the game

About Lotto 6/49

Lotto 6/49 is billed as "Canada's national lottery game". It launched in June 1982 and is run by the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation. Draws take place on Wednesday and Saturday: 6 numbers and a bonus number are drawn from 49.

Since September 2022 the game works differently from most 6/49 lotteries. The Classic draw's jackpot no longer rolls over: it is a fixed C$5 million, shared between winners. Alongside it, every play gets a unique 10-digit number for the Gold Ball Draw, where one number wins at every draw. The prize is decided by a ball drawn from a set of 30, with 29 white balls and one gold:

• a white ball pays C$1 million, leaves the set and adds C$2 million to the Gold Ball Jackpot;
• the gold ball pays the Gold Ball Jackpot, which starts at C$10 million and is capped at C$68 million.

Because white balls are not put back, the gold ball is certain to come out within 30 draws.

In the Classic draw, prizes for 5 matches (with or without the bonus) and for 4 matches are pari-mutuel, and the smaller ones are fixed. Two matches without the bonus win a free play. All draws come from a random number generator certified by GLI. The record under the old format is still the C$64 million won on 17 October 2015 by a ticket sold in Mississauga. The first maximum Gold Ball Jackpot of C$68 million was won on 27 September 2023 by a ticket sold in Toronto.

The Lottevo archive holds 1,110 Lotto 6/49 draws, from 23 January 2016 to 31 October 2026.

Over the whole archive, the most frequently drawn number is 10 (158 times), and the least frequent is 1 (112 times). Each draw is independent: past frequencies do not change the odds of the next one.

Game at a glance

Know the details.

Game code

CA-002

Number format

6/49+1

Currency

CAD

Time zone

America/Toronto

Schedule

Wednesday and Saturday at 22:30

Prize model

Mixed

Odds of the top prize

1 in 13,983,816

Price of one play

CA$3

Sales close

at 22:30 (America/Toronto)

Paid options

• ENCORE · CA$1 per playOntario (OLG)
• Extra · CA$1 per numberQuébec (Loto-Québec)
• EXTRA · CA$1 per playWest: AB/SK/MB/territories (WCLC)
• TAG · CA$1 per lineAtlantic (ALC)
• Extra · CA$1 per lineBritish Columbia (BCLC)

First draw

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Results on record

24 Jan 2016 to 1 Nov 2026

Completeness of the record

98.67% · with gaps · from the operator