Which scratch ticket has the best odds in Alberta? The WCLC numbers

The Western Canada Lottery Corporation runs the lottery in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the three territories, and it publishes the overall odds on almost every scratch ticket it sells. What it doesn’t do is put them anywhere you’d find them. There’s no odds list, no comparison page, and nothing in the FAQ. The number sits on each game’s own page, and the only way to open that page is to click the picture of the ticket.

So we clicked all 68 of them. Odds on an ordinary ticket run from 1 in 2.18 to 1 in 4.92, and one $20 game is listed at 1 in 1. The same pages carry the prize counts, which answer a second question: 14 of those 68 games have no top prize left.

Which scratch ticket has the best odds in Alberta?

On the games currently on sale, the best odds belong to Dills To Bill$, a $3 scratch-and-sniff ticket at 1 in 2.18. The $20 Bingo Party is listed at 1 in 1, but that’s a multiplayer pouch game with a guaranteed win in every pouch, so it isn’t comparable to a single ticket. The worst odds on the rack are 1 in 4.92.

Every figure is WCLC’s own, read off the 68 game pages on September 22, 2026. Games rotate, so look up whatever is actually in front of you.

Notice that the odds don’t climb with price the way you’d expect. Leaving the Bingo Party pouch aside, the best $3 ticket beats every ticket on the rack that costs more than it does. That’s because these odds count any prize, and a cheap game can hand out a lot of small ones.

Two printings of the same game can differ, too. There are two $10 Crossword Deluxes on sale: no. 16136 at 1 in 3.03, and no. 16129 at 1 in 3.04, whose top prize is already gone.

Where the odds actually are

Go to WCLC’s current tickets (opens in a new tab) page and click any ticket. A panel opens with that game’s description and a line reading “Overall odds 1 in 3.73” or similar. Ruby Mine 5X (opens in a new tab) is a fair example.

67 of the 68 games carry that line. The one that doesn’t is the $7 OH! CANADA, which publishes no odds figure at all.

What WCLC doesn’t publish

The payout. That’s the share of every dollar spent on a game that comes back to players as prizes, and it’s the number that tells you what a ticket costs you on average. WCLC publishes it for no game, and there’s no way to derive it.

On our British Columbia page we calculated the payout BCLC never prints, by taking the odds it publishes at each prize level and multiplying them out. That needs per-prize odds, and WCLC publishes a single overall figure instead. The audited books don’t help either: WCLC’s 2025 annual report (opens in a new tab) shows INSTANT tickets sold $348.09 million of the corporation’s $1.56 billion, but prizes are one pooled line of $854.27 million across every game, so the scratch share can’t be pulled out of it.

The one payout figure WCLC does give

One number, for everything it sells together. Its FAQ answers “Where does the money go?” like this: “Of every dollar spent on tickets, approximately 52.3 percent goes back to players in the form of prizes.” Retail commissions take about 6.6 percent, operating costs 5.5 percent, printing 1.1 percent, and 34.1 percent goes to the member governments as revenue.

That covers LOTTO MAX, 6/49, KENO, Sport Select and scratch tickets in one average, and draw games usually pay back less than instants do. It isn’t the payout on a scratch ticket, and WCLC doesn’t offer one. For scale, seven recent Ontario games run 64.96% to 72.64%, and B.C.’s work out between 52.25% and 75.02%, but those are different lotteries with different games and the comparison stops there.

Is the top prize still there?

On 14 of the 68 games on sale, no. WCLC publishes a prizes remaining page (opens in a new tab) listing every prize of $100 or more not yet claimed, game by game, with a last-updated date. When we pulled it, that date was September 17, 2026.

It’s the most useful page WCLC has, and it answers something the odds can’t: whether the prize on the front of the ticket is still in the game.

The 14 games still selling with the top prize gone

The prizes remaining list mixes games still on the rack with games already withdrawn but still claimable, and doesn’t mark which is which. So we matched it against the current tickets list by game number, dropped the eight games flagged as coming soon, and checked the top tier of every game on sale that appears on the prize list. A game released in the last week or so won’t be on it yet.

Read off WCLC’s own two pages on September 22, 2026. The counts move every week, so check them yourself rather than trusting this table next month.

Ruby Mine 5X is the clearest case. It’s a $5 ticket that went on sale in January, and its $100,000, $10,000 and $1,000 tiers are all at zero. The largest prize left anywhere in that game is $500, and there are four. The ticket is still on the rack at full price with $100,000 printed on the front, and its page still says “Win up to $100,000!”

At the other end, Luxe Multiplier costs $100. The million is gone, so is the $100,000, so is the $50,000. The best a buyer can now do is $25,000, and there’s one.

Smaller prizes are still in all 14 games, and most winning tickets were never going to be the top prize anyway. The catch is that the top prize is what the ticket advertises. Ontario’s Auditor General raised the same practice with OLG and asked for a barcode that switches a game off at the till once the top prizes are gone, due in June 2027 (opens in a new tab). Nothing like it has been announced in the Prairies, so the prizes remaining page is the check, and it’s on the buyer to run it.

Is it the same ticket in Saskatchewan and Manitoba?

Mostly, yes. WCLC is the agent for the governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba (opens in a new tab), with the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut as associate members, and it works alongside Alberta Gaming, Liquor & Cannabis, Sask Lotteries and Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries. One catalogue covers all of them, so a game number on a rack in Lethbridge is the same game in Brandon or Saskatoon, at the same odds.

Two current tickets are Alberta-only: a $7 Lucky Larry’s Lobstermania and a $2 Only In Alberta Bingo. National games, marked with an asterisk on the prizes remaining page, report unclaimed prizes across every participating province rather than just the west.

Where the Friday $5 could be going instead

Across Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the territories, people buy $1.56 billion of lottery tickets a year, about $250 for every adult. A $5 ticket every Friday is $260 a year on its own.

Lodavo is a Canadian app that gives you free tickets in a weekly cash draw based on the money already sitting in your own savings or chequing account. Every $25 is one ticket, the top prize is $10,000, and a prize of at least $100 goes to a user every week. It’s free, and your savings stay in your own bank earning whatever they already earn. If the part you like is having a number to check on the weekend, this is the version where the $5 is still yours on Monday.

Frequently asked questions

Does a game get pulled once the top prize is won?

Not automatically. WCLC keeps selling the remaining stock, and the lower-tier prizes are genuinely still available. All 14 games in the table above were on WCLC’s current tickets list on September 22, 2026 with their top prizes at zero, some of them for months.

Do the odds get better as a game sells down?

Not in a way you can use. The published figure is fixed when the game is printed. Claimed prizes leave the pool, but so do the tickets that held them, and WCLC doesn’t publish how many of either are left. The prizes remaining page is the closest thing to a current picture.

Where do I find the prizes remaining list?

On wclc.com under Games, then Scratch & Win, then Prizes Remaining. It loads on a phone, names every current game, and shows unclaimed prizes of $100 and up with the date it was last refreshed. It’s the check to run before you pay, not after.

What this adds up to

Dills To Bill$ pays a prize most often, at 1 in 2.18 on a $3 ticket. That’s the honest answer to the odds question, and it’s also the smaller half of it, because the number that would tell you what a ticket costs you is the payout, and WCLC doesn’t publish it for anything it sells. The question you can settle before you pay is whether the top prize is still in the game. For 14 of the 68 tickets on sale right now, it isn’t.

Want a weekly draw where the ticket is free? Download Lodavo on the Apple App Store (opens in a new tab) or Google Play Store (opens in a new tab) and start earning tickets on the savings you already have.

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.