Lotto Max Hits $90 Million for Tuesday's Draw — Canada's Largest Lottery Jackpot Ever

File photo: a lottery vending machine (3steph14 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0).

Ninety million dollars. That's the number sitting on Tuesday's Lotto Max draw — and nobody in this country has ever had a shot at a bigger one.

Friday night's draw came and went without a jackpot winner. So the top prize rolls into Tuesday, October 20, and Loto-Québec says the total prize pool for that draw will be around $110 million: the $90-million jackpot, an estimated 20 Maxmillions prizes of $1 million each, and 90 Maxplus prizes of $100,000 apiece.

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation has called it the largest lottery jackpot amount available to win in Canada. They aren't exaggerating.

Why $90 million is suddenly possible

Until this year, Lotto Max simply couldn't go this high. The game capped its jackpot at $80 million. That changed with the April 2026 overhaul: the cap went up to $90 million, Maxplus prizes of $100,000 were introduced, and a play still costs $6 for four selections of seven numbers drawn from 1 to 52.

Friday was the first draw ever to reach the new ceiling — and now it's happened twice in a row without a winner. Once the jackpot hits $90 million, extra revenue stops feeding it and starts piling up in the secondary prizes instead, which is why Tuesday's draw has so many $1-million Maxmillions and $100,000 Maxplus awards attached to it.

Before this month, the largest lottery payout in Canadian history was the $80-million jackpot — plus a second prize — split between two friends in London, Ontario, according to OLG. Tuesday's draw shatters that.

Your odds, stated plainly

Let's not dress this up. The odds of winning the jackpot are about one in 33.4 million per play, according to OLG. You're more likely to be struck by lightning — by a lot. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety puts the odds of being struck by lightning in this country at less than one in a million. One analysis even joked that you're likelier to be killed by an asteroid impact on your walk to buy the ticket than to hit the jackpot. Your odds of winning any prize at all are roughly one in 5.8, which is where the small comfort lies.

And tickets do go unclaimed. CTV News reported that a $70-million ticket sold in Toronto's Scarborough area in 2022 was never cashed and eventually expired back into the pool. The OLG also flagged a $40-million ticket sold last year in Grey County, Ontario, that was set to expire on October 28. So if you buy in, check the ticket — and check it again.

When and how Tuesday's draw works

Lotto Max draws happen every Tuesday and Friday at 10:30 p.m. Eastern. Ticket sales for Tuesday close at 10:30 p.m. ET. You pick seven numbers from 1 to 52, and if one of your selections matches all seven drawn numbers, the $90 million is yours — split with anyone else who matched.

In Friday's draw, the one bit of good fortune landed in Québec: Loto-Québec says a $1-million Maxmillions prize was won on a ticket sold in the province. The province has produced 54 Lotto Max jackpot wins since the game's 2009 launch, including three at $70 million — the biggest jackpots ever won in Québec — plus 256 Maxmillions prizes.

I'm not telling anyone to buy a ticket. But if you do, Tuesday night is the biggest shot Canada has ever offered.

Sources

• Loto-Québec via CNW — $90 million jackpot and an estimated 20 Maxmillions in the next Lotto Max draw
• The Canadian Wire — Lotto Max jackpot reaches record $90 million
• TodoCanada — Lotto Max jackpot reaches record $90 million for Friday's draw