BURST
Canada’s biggest jackpot lottery, Lotto Max, will look different — starting with Tuesday’s $25 million draw.
The national lottery, which is administered in this province by the B.C. Lottery Corporation (BCLC), has introduced several changes:
• Each ticket will now have four sets of seven numbers, up from three. The seven numbers are drawn from No. 1 through 52. There were 50 numbers to choose from in the previous version of Lotto Max.
• The jackpots will now continue to grow until they reach $90 million, up from the current $80 million maximum.
• Maxmillions prizes will continue to be added once the jackpot reaches $50 million. These are $1 million prizes drawn from separate sets of seven numbers, with no guaranteed winner.
• Based on the level of the jackpot, there will be anywhere from 10 to 90 separate draws for bonus prizes of $100,000 each. For instance, with the jackpot at $25 million on Tuesday night, there will be one jackpot draw of seven numbers, plus 25 draws of seven different sets of numbers for the $100,000 prizes. As with the main jackpot draw, there is no guarantee they all will be won in any particular draw.
• The odds of winning any prize are now 1 in 5.8, up from 1 in 7 in the old format.
• The odds that a single ticket will win the jackpot have risen, but barely, and they were already exceedingly long. They’ve gone up from 1 in 33,294,800 before to 1 in 33,446,140.
• A single ticket will now cost $6, up from $5. It’s the first price increase since its launch across Canada in 2009.