Канадалық лото 6/49 ойыны

Canadian lottery game

Lotto 6/49 is one of three national lottery games in Canada. Launched on June 12, 1982, Lotto 6/49 was the first nationwide Canadian lottery game to allow players to choose their own numbers. Previous national games, such as the Olympic Lottery, Loto Canada and Superloto used pre printed numbers on tickets. Lotto 6/49 led to the gradual phase out of that type of lottery game in Canada. Winning numbers are drawn by the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation (ILC) every Wednesday and Saturday, executed with a random number generator.

Before the June 2004 increase in ticket prices from $1 to $2, the largest Lotto 6/49 jackpot was $26.4 million, on September 2, 1995. Prior to the September 2022 change in format, the largest Lotto 6/49 jackpot was drawn on October 17, 2015 for $64 million. The jackpot was won by one ticket purchased in Mississauga, Ontario. The second largest Lotto 6/49 jackpot was $63.4 million on the draw for April 13, 2013. Until 2019, these were the two largest jackpots in Canadian history; by comparison, while Lotto Max has had a main prize pool as high as $128 million, that lottery has set a cap on its main jackpot (which was most recently raised from $60 million to $70 million, with the first $65 million and $70 million jackpots first hit in 2019 and 2020 respectively) with excess "main prize pool" money being assigned to supplemental "MaxMillions" prizes of $1 million each. The third largest Lotto 6/49 jackpot was drawn on October 26, 2005. The single winning ticket, worth $54.3 million, was purchased in Camrose, Alberta by a group of 17 oil and gas plant workers. This was the largest Canadian lottery jackpot up to that time, and a significant increase from the previous record of $37.8 million on a Super 7 lottery draw in 2002—rapid sales created by lottery fever across the country pushed this 2005 Lotto 6/49 jackpot far beyond the originally estimated $40 million. The jackpot was not awarded to the Gold Ball Draw winner, meaning that the maximum jackpot of $68 million was awarded for the first time during the September 27 draw. The winning ticket was sold in the Toronto area.

The Lotto 6/49 game is administered by the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation, an alliance of the five regional lottery corporations in Canada. Each of these corporations operate a regional add on games that, for an extra $1 each, can be added to a 6/49 ticket. This "spiel" game (named "Tag", "Encore" or "Extra" depending on the region), adds a 6 or 7 digit number to the ticket with a top prize of $100,000 if all six digits are matched or $250,000 to $1,000,000 depending on the region for a seven number match ($1,000,000 in Ontario and Quebec; $250,000 in the Western Canada region of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the territories). Alongside the main Lotto 6/49 drawing, the regional corporations also run local versions of the game; Atlantic 49, Quebec 49, Ontario 49, Western 6/49, and BC 49. These draws are held on the same night as each Lotto 6/49 drawing, but with fixed jackpots of $2,000,000 (or $1,000,000 on Atlantic 49). Most of these regional games still use the prize structure used by the national game prior to September 18, 2013; Ontario 49 and Western 6/49 do use the current prize structure, adding a free play for matching two numbers. Most regional variants of 6/49 use only the Classic Draw format, although Atlantic 49 also offers a raffle prize of $25,649 on each drawing.