Which lottery has the best odds in Canada? Ranked by province

Which lottery has the best odds in Canada depends on what you’re hoping to win. For a top prize, the small daily games are far ahead: a Pick-3 bet on three digits in exact order wins 1 time in 1,000, while a Lotto Max play has a 1 in 33,446,140 chance at the jackpot. For a prize of any size, Poker Lotto and Québec Max pay something about once every four plays. And for money back, most draw games return about half of what players spend on them.

Which lottery has the best odds in Canada?

The Pick games, if you mean the odds of winning the top prize. Pick-2, Pick-3 and Pick-4 draw from 100, 1,000 and 10,000 possible numbers, so their top prizes come up far more often than any jackpot. The trade-off is the prize itself: $99 on Pick-2, around $500 on Pick-3 and $5,000 on Pick-4. The lottery keeps a share of every dollar on every game below.

Odds from each lottery corporation’s own game conditions and game pages, read in November 2026. On Pick-3, OLG shares a prize pool among each draw’s winners, so the prize moves a little from draw to draw. Loto-Québec’s La Quotidienne works the same way as the Pick games, with two, three or four digits.

A Pick-3 exact-order bet is about 33,000 times as likely to hit as a Lotto Max jackpot. Three digits make only 1,000 possible numbers. Seven numbers from 1 to 52 make 133,784,560 combinations, and a $6 Lotto Max play covers four of them.

What are the odds on Lotto Max, 6/49 and Daily Grand?

The three national games are sold in every province, at the same odds, and they all pay back about half. Lotto 6/49 and Daily Grand have the better jackpot odds, at about 1 in 14 million and 1 in 13 million. Lotto Max pays a prize most often, at 1 in 5.8 per play, and shares the longest jackpot odds in Canada with Québec Max.

From the Lotto Max (opens in a new tab), Lotto 6/49 (opens in a new tab) and Daily Grand (opens in a new tab) game conditions, and the payout rates Loto-Québec publishes on its Lotto Max (opens in a new tab), 6/49 (opens in a new tab) and Grande Vie (opens in a new tab) pages.

Lotto Max changed with the draw on April 14, 2026. The price went from $5 to $6, a play went from three sets of numbers to four, and the numbers now run to 52. That improved the odds of winning something, from 1 in 7.0 to 1 in 5.8, and made the jackpot a little harder to hit. Our Lotto Max vs 6/49 comparison goes through what each one actually pays when you win.

Which lottery has the best odds in Ontario?

On top-prize odds, Pick-2, Pick-3 and Pick-4, then Cash Pop and Lightning Lotto. OLG also sells Lottario, the province’s own Saturday lotto, which pays the jackpot 1 time in 4,072,530 and is one of the few draw games with a published payout: 51% of sales go to prizes. Ontario 49 pays $2 million at the same odds as Lotto 6/49.

Lottario moves to two draws a week, Wednesday and Saturday, from February 3, 2027, with the same prizes and odds. If you’d rather know how the scratch tickets compare, OLG publishes a payout for every one, and our guide to which scratch ticket has the best odds in Ontario lines them up.

Which lottery has the best odds in BC?

Pacific Hold’em Poker, whose top prize comes up 1 time in 31,719, though that top prize is a jackpot shared among its winners. B.C. has no Pick games, so its other draws all have long top-prize odds: Extra pays $500,000 at 1 in 3,764,376, Keno’s 10-number prize is 1 in 8,911,712, and BC/49 pays $2 million at 1 in 13,983,816. BCLC publishes the odds of every prize but no payout rate.

B.C.’s Keno is harder than Ontario’s even though it looks the same. Both draw 20 numbers, but B.C. draws them from 80 and Ontario from 70, so matching all 10 of your numbers is 1 in 2.1 million in Ontario and 1 in 8.9 million in B.C. On the scratch side, BCLC’s tickets pay back between 52% and 75% when you add up their prize tables, which our B.C. scratch ticket guide does game by game.

Which lottery has the best odds in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba?

The Prairies and the territories share one lottery, the Western Canada Lottery Corporation, and its best top-prize odds are on Pick 2, Pick 3 and Pick 4 again. Lightning Lotto follows at 1 in 635,628, then Poker Lotto. Poker Lotto also pays a prize 1 time in 3.66, the second-best odds of winning anything we found in Canada.

Western Max still uses Lotto Max’s old format: three sets of seven numbers from 1 to 50, at the old jackpot odds. It’s a separate regional game, so the April change to Lotto Max didn’t touch it. Our Alberta scratch ticket guide covers the instant games.

Which lottery has the best odds in Quebec?

La Quotidienne, Loto-Québec’s daily numbers game, which works like the Pick games: an exact match pays 50 times your stake on two digits, at 1 in 100. Of the other draw games, Astro has the best top-prize odds, 1 in 446,400 for $25,000, and Tout ou rien the best payout, 54.62%. Loto-Québec is the one lottery that publishes a payout rate for every game.

La Quotidienne returns 50% on its two-digit version and 45% on the three- and four-digit ones. Québec Max pays a prize most often, 1 time in 3.9, and returns 47%, a point less than Lotto Max. Banco’s odds change with how many numbers you play, and our Banco odds guide goes through them wager by wager. For scratch tickets (gratteux in Quebec), which pay back more than any of these, see which lottery ticket has the best odds in Quebec.

Which lottery has the best odds in Atlantic Canada?

Lotto 4, then TAG. Atlantic Lottery’s Lotto 4 pays $5,000 on an exact-order match at 1 in 10,000, and TAG pays $100,000 at 1 in 600,000. Poker Lotto has the best odds of winning a prize of any game we found in the country, at 1 in 3.45. Atlantic 49 has the same jackpot odds as the other regional 6/49 games but a smaller top prize: $1 million.

Our Atlantic Lottery scratch ticket guide covers the instant games.

Which lottery has the best odds of winning anything?

Poker Lotto, Québec Max and Banco Spécial, all near one win in four. But a game’s odds of winning any prize count every prize on the table, free plays included, so they’re less useful than they look. The clearest example is the same six-from-49 format sold under different names: Ontario 49 pays a prize 1 time in 6.6, while BC/49 and Québec 49 pay a prize only 1 time in 32.3.

The difference between Ontario 49 and BC/49 is one prize. Ontario 49 gives a free play for matching two numbers, and BC/49 doesn’t, so its smallest prize is $5, for two numbers plus the bonus. The format and the jackpot odds are identical. The national games count free plays too: Lotto Max’s 1 in 5.8 is per $6 play of four sets of numbers, and its most common prize is a free play.

Which lottery pays back the most?

Most draw games return about half. Of the rates Canadian lotteries publish, the highest for a draw game is Tout ou rien’s 54.62%, followed by Lottario at 51% and Banco Spécial at 50.17%. The national games return 48% to 49%, and an exact-order Pick-3 or Pick-4 bet works out to exactly 50%: Pick-4 pays $5,000 and wins 1 time in 10,000.

Scratch tickets usually pay back more. Loto-Québec’s return 58% to 75%, and OLG’s recent games 65% to 73%. Even then, 25 to 42 cents of every dollar stays with the lottery. Better odds on the top prize don’t change that, because the game makes up for them with a smaller prize.

What if you didn’t have to buy a ticket?

Part of what a lottery ticket gets you is a few days of having something to look forward to. Lodavo gives you that without the ticket price. It’s a free app that rewards saving: every $25 you have saved earns a ticket in a weekly cash draw, the top prize is $10,000, and at least $100 goes to a user every week.

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The best odds, depending on what you’re after

For the top prize, the Pick games, La Quotidienne and Cash Pop all beat any jackpot by a long way. For a prize of any size, Poker Lotto, Québec Max and Banco Spécial come up most often, though many of those wins are a free play or a few dollars. For money back, most draw games return about half, the big three national games a little less, and scratch tickets usually more. Games and prize tables change, as Lotto Max’s did in April, and each lottery’s own game page has the current numbers.

Playing Powerball in the US? Our US guide to which lottery has the best odds does the same ranking for the American games.

Lodavo is free on the Apple App Store (opens in a new tab) and the Google Play Store (opens in a new tab), and your first tickets come from whatever you save this week.

Terms and conditions apply. No purchase necessary (alternate method of entry available). Skill-testing question required. Open to legal residents of Canada who are the age of majority. Odds depend on the number of eligible entries received. Full rules and odds at our contest rules.