Lotto Max is Canada’s flagship national jackpot game, drawn twice a week and sold identically by all five regional lottery corporations. This chapter covers how a play slip is priced, what each prize tier pays, and where the jackpot odds figure comes from.
Draw schedule and how a play is structured
Lotto Max draws happen every Tuesday and Friday evening. A standard play costs $6 for four separate number selections (four lines) on one play slip. Each line enters the same draw independently, with its own shot at every prize tier including the jackpot.
Jackpot odds: the number everyone asks about
The jackpot — matching all seven numbers drawn — sits at 1 in 33,446,140 for the standard $6 play, a figure that already reflects the four-line structure of a standard slip. The jackpot starts at roughly $10 million after a win and climbs with each rollover to a $90 million cap; once it reaches that cap, additional growth is distributed as extra Max Millions prizes — separate $1 million draws layered on top of the main jackpot draw — rather than letting the headline jackpot climb indefinitely.
Prize tiers below the jackpot
Lotto Max pays out across several tiers below the jackpot, each requiring a partial match of the seven main numbers plus, on some tiers, a bonus number, as the table below shows. Treat the operator’s own odds page as the definitive current figures, since prize amounts are pari-mutuel (split among winners in that tier) and can shift slightly between draws.
| Match | Prize | Approx. odds |
|---|---|---|
| 7 of 7 (jackpot) | $10M–$90M pool, plus Max Millions | 1 in 33,446,140* |
| 6 of 7 + bonus | Share of pools fund | 1 in 4,778,020 |
| 6 of 7 | Share of pools fund | 1 in 108,591 |
| 5 of 7 + bonus | Share of pools fund | 1 in 36,197 |
| 5 of 7 | Share of pools fund | 1 in 1,684 |
| 4 of 7 + bonus | Share of pools fund | 1 in 1,010 |
| 4 of 7 | Fixed small prize | 1 in 72 |
| 3 of 7 + bonus | Fixed small prize | 1 in 72 |
| 3 of 7 | Free play | 1 in 7 |
*Jackpot odds as published by the operating corporations for the standard $6 / four-line play; sub-tier odds are approximate and pari-mutuel prizes vary slightly by draw — confirm current figures on your corporation’s own odds page before you play.
The April 2026 relaunch added MaxPlus, a separate side-prize built into every draw: for every $1 million in the current jackpot, one additional $100,000 prize is drawn from its own set of seven numbers (1 to 52) — so a $10 million jackpot carries 10 MaxPlus prizes, scaling up to 90 at the $90 million cap. Winning MaxPlus works the same way as winning the jackpot — an exact match of all seven numbers against that draw’s separate MaxPlus set — so the odds per line are the same 1 in 33,446,140 as the main jackpot. MaxPlus is distinct from Max Millions, which remains the mechanism for extra prizes once the jackpot hits its cap.
The Prize Ladder
Click a tier to see its exact prize and odds. Bar length is a log scale of rarity, since the jackpot is millions of times rarer than the lowest tier.
How Lotto Max compares to buying a Lotto 6/49 ticket
Both national games are sold side by side at every retailer but priced and structured differently. Our Lotto 6/49 chapter breaks down the older, cheaper game in the same detail, including a side-by-side comparison table.
Buying, claiming and staying safe
Lotto Max is sold at retail everywhere in Canada and, where a province runs its own online platform, directly through the corporation — OLG.ca ↗ in Ontario or Loto-Québec ↗ in Quebec. If a ticket wins, our chapter on how to verify a winning ticket safely covers the claims process; if you’re ever contacted out of the blue about a Lotto Max prize you didn’t buy a ticket for, that isn’t how this game works — see common lottery scams for the pattern. Our overview of the five lottery corporations covers the wider system these draws sit inside.
The odds above are fixed by design and no strategy changes them — if the twice-weekly habit ever stops feeling like entertainment, the responsible gambling page lists free tools and help lines available in every province.