Lottery Games
Draw-based lottery games and scratch tickets are some of the most popular games of chance in Québec. That’s not surprising—playing the lottery is easy and appealing! Everyone dreams of winning big! And yet, the odds of winning a major prize are very low, and that’s especially true for the jackpot.
The risks
Jackpots are enticing
We’ve all imagined at one time or another winning a significant amount of money that would help us make our dreams come true. Jackpots are one of the most attractive features of lottery games. The larger the jackpot, the more people purchase tickets. There’s every reason to hope. However, we can’t lose sight of the fact that the odds of winning the jackpot are very low, and those of losing are still higher than those of winning. Take Lotto Max, for example, where the odds of winning the jackpot are one out of 33,294,800. That means you’re 33,294,799 times more likely to lose!
Useful tips
Dreaming, humbly
Choosing based on your budget
The lottery isn’t a way to make money
The idea of winning a lot of money instantly is certainly seductive. And for many people, winning the jackpot is a possible means of striking it rich. But lottery games are not a source of income.
Useful tips
Playing to have fun, not to make money
Learning about the odds of winning
Playing the lottery is easy
Lottery games are readily available and easy to play. We can get them at the corner store or online. We don’t need any special skills or knowledge to play—or to win or lose, for that matter! The risk lies in not resisting the temptation when we’re at the cash register. It also lies in exceeding our budget without even realizing it.
Useful tips
Keeping a level head
How chance thwarts our plans.
The law of large numbers
This law explains that the more an experience is repeated, the more the observed results are likely to converge toward the expected odds. When playing the lottery, the odds of winning are low. In the long run, losses will always outweigh wins.
It’s what makes winning the jackpot so unique.
Every draw entails a random number selection.
At Loto-Québec, draw-based lottery winning numbers are chosen by a random number generator. This means all combinations have the same odds of being drawn at every draw.
The result of every draw is independent of previous and future draws.
So, if a number was drawn last week, it has exactly the same odds of being drawn the following week. This is to say that whether we choose to play our own numbers or a Quick Pick, the odds of winning are the same.
Every combination of a draw-based lottery game has the same odds of being drawn.
For instance, every combination of 6 numbers in the Lotto 6/49 classic draw has one chance out of roughly 14 million of being drawn—and roughly 13,999,999 chances of not coming up. Whether we play our lucky numbers or a Quick Pick makes no difference: The odds of our numbers being drawn are the same.
Scratch tickets are no exception!
Scratch tickets are printed in large batches, and prizes are randomly distributed among them. So, there’s no way of predicting which ticket will be a winning one.
Loto-Québec does everything possible to ensure that each winning number results from chance alone.
Everything is put in place to make sure the rules of the game are followed:
- Draws are conducted under the supervision of external auditors.
- Tickets are printed using strict procedures.
Beliefs
See what’s true or false
Ontarians win Canada-wide lottery games more often.
True!
It’s a simple numbers game: There are many more Ontarians! That means that more tickets are purchased in Ontario than in Québec. So, while there are more Ontarian winners, there are also more losers in the long run. In the end, every ticket has the same odds of winning, regardless of where we purchased it.
Choosing the same combination every week increases the odds.
False.
Choosing the same numbers every week doesn’t influence the odds of winning. The odds of drawing the numbers in that combination are the same every week. The concept of independence of events is at play here: The result of every draw is independent from previous and future draws.
A number that hasn't come up in a long time is more likely to be drawn soon.
False.
That’s the hot or cold number belief, which means assessing our odds by thinking that some numbers are more likely (hot) or less likely (cold) to be drawn based on recent results. Draws are independent and reset to zero every time. That’s what we call the independence of events.
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