The traditional elements of the game will remain the same. You will still pick six numbers from 49, the cost per play will remain CA$3, and draws will continue to take place every Wednesday and Friday.
The main draw will be rebranded as the Classic Draw, with a jackpot that always stays fixed at $5 million. Currently, the jackpot rolls over if there are no tickets that match all the numbers.
Gold Ball Jackpot
Going forward from September, the rolling prize will be found in the new Gold Ball Jackpot. This is a new game that will take the place of the Guaranteed Prize Draw.
It will work in a similar way to the Guaranteed Prize Draw but builds upon it significantly. Every ticket will still include a unique code and one will be selected as a winner in each draw. However, the winner could now receive a jackpot of more than CA$60 million.
In the Gold Ball draw, there is a ‘gold ball’ that is worth at least CA$10 million and 29 non-gold balls. If the Gold Ball is drawn, the winning player receives the jackpot. If it is not drawn, they still receive CA$1 million. The number of non-gold balls in the draw is reduced with each passing draw so that the jackpot is more likely to be won, while the jackpot increases by $2 million each time.
Go to the Lotto 6/49 page to find out more about the upcoming changes. In announcing the new rules, the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation said the changes would ‘create more excitement while maintaining the classic elements of the game that are important to players’.
Lotto 6/49 launched in June 1982 and has always followed the same format, with players selecting six numbers from 1 to 49 as the name of the game suggests. The biggest jackpot came back in October 2015, when a ticket holder from Mississauga won CA64 million.
