Frequently Asked Questions

A: WCLC sells single draw tickets for products like LOTTO 6/49, WESTERN 649, LOTTO MAX, WESTERN MAX, and DAILY GRAND through our Lotto Spot app. The same games can be purchased for consecutive draws – up to a year at a time – through SubscriptionSpot.ca. 
  

WCLC products including LOTTO MAX, LOTTO 6/49, WESTERN MAX and WESTERN 649 can also be purchased at PlayNow (in Manitoba) and PlayAlberta.ca (in Alberta).

A: DAILY GRAND, LOTTO 6/49 and LOTTO MAX are national lottery games and are played in the five different regions across Canada. Each region maintains its own computer system and database of winning tickets, so terminals in a region can only verify tickets purchased in their own region.

To claim a prize on a ticket purchased in another part of Canada, you can either return to the region where you bought the ticket, or you can mail the ticket to the address on the back. Make sure your name and return address are clearly printed in the Claim Form area on the ticket.

Outside WCLC’s region of the Prairies and the North, the other four Canadian lottery corporations are:

·       BCLC: British Columbia

·       OLG: Ontario

·       Loto-Québec: Quebec

·       Atlantic Lottery: Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island

A: If you haven’t already, print your legal name, address and daytime telephone number on the back of your winning ticket. Anyone claiming a prize through a Prize Payout Office must present identification. Any changes to the information on the back of the ticket must be investigated before the prize can be paid.

Be sure to store any large winning tickets in a safe place until you can collect the prize. To make prize claim arrangements, read the “claiming a prize” information here, or contact Player Care. Be sure to claim the prize within a year of the draw date or the day of the sports game or event. For scratch tickets, check the back for the date you can claim prizes until.

A: The Lotto Spot retailer where a major winning ticket is sold is revealed and publicized when the prize has been claimed and paid.  

Prior to the payment of a prize, WCLC lists major prize wins by province (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta) or Territory (Nunavut, Yukon, Northwest Territories) when the winning ticket was sold outside of a major city.  When it is sold within a major city (Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, Yellowknife, and Whitehorse), we list the city name.  If there is more than one winning ticket purchased in any location, the number of winning tickets appears beside that location (i.e., Edmonton *2*). 

Because verifying the retail location is part of the security procedure, we use to confirm that a ticket presented is indeed a winning ticket, more specific information about where a winning ticket is sold cannot be released until the prize is claimed.

A: Congratulations! For claim instructions, contact Player Care. More prize claim information can also be found here: Claiming a Prize 

If you purchased your tickets on Subscription Spot, in Manitoba on PlayNow, or in Alberta on PlayAlberta.ca, you would receive an email notification with instructions on how to claim your prize.

A: Please contact us to claim your prize.

A winner's interview and photo are required for all claims of $10,000 or more.

A: No. All lottery tickets are valid for a specified length of time, and no prizes can be paid after that time. 

DAILY GRAND, LOTTO MAX, LOTTO 6/49, WESTERN 649, WESTERN MAX, POKER LOTTO, EXTRA, KENO, PICK 2, PICK 3 and PICK 4 tickets expire one year from the draw date. 

SPORT SELECT ticket holders have one year from the date the last selected game was played to claim any prizes. 

Scratch tickets have an expiry date printed on the back of the ticket. 

A: Of every dollar spent on tickets, approximately 52.3 percent goes back to players in the form of prizes. Lottery retail commissions are approximately 6.6 percent of sales. Western Canada Lottery Corporation operating expenses are approximately 5.5 percent of sales with ticket printing accounting for an additional 1.1 percent. The remaining 34.1 percent is revenue returned to WCLC's members - the governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba and associate members Yukon Territory, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Revenue is based on sales from each member province or territory. Each provincial and territorial government establishes its own priorities for disbursement of lottery funds.

A: The notification you received was not from WCLC and we can assure you that you have not won a prize from WCLC. We do not charge taxes or service fees on any of our games.  To win a prize on our games players must first purchase a ticket while in our jurisdiction.    

Solicitations like this are scams. Although they often use logos or names of WCLC and other companies without those companies’ knowledge or consent.  Please do not – under any circumstances – provide funds or personal information to anyone who contacts you in this way.  

Visit WCLC's Identifying Lottery Scams page for more information. 

A: When you sign up for MVP Service, you can choose to receive emails letting you know the winning DAILY GRAND, LOTTO MAX and WESTERN MAX, and/or LOTTO 6/49 and WESTERN 649 numbers on the night of the draw, as well as alerts about the upcoming LOTTO MAX and LOTTO 6/49 jackpot amounts, special offers, and promotions.

MVP members can save SPORT SELECT picks for tickets built on sportselect.com and can participate in many WCLC contests without any additional registration steps.

A: If you wish to make changes to your account and stop receiving winning numbers, Jackpot Alerts and other notifications, simply login to your account and choose to edit your Email Preferences.  For each game, uncheck the box beside Winning Numbers and set Jackpot Alerts to "No thanks", then click Save for your changes to take effect.  When you want to start receiving alerts again, log back in and update your Email Preferences again. 

If you no longer want to be registered, simply click on unsubscribe to delete your account.

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A: Draws for national games like DAILY GRAND, LOTTO 6/49 and LOTTO MAX take place in a secure location in Toronto, Ontario, and are conducted by Interprovincial Lottery Corporation (ILC).

Draws for regional games - including WESTERN 649, WESTERN MAX, EXTRA, POKER LOTTO and PICK - are conducted by WCLC in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

A: All draws for national and regional games occur using Random Number Generator (RNG) software on stand-alone computerized draw machines. RNG software streamlines the draws while maintaining security, reliability, speed and the ability to audit results.

For more information, visit WCLC's Game & Draw Security webpage.

A: Bigger jackpots generate excitement among players and are usually more effective in boosting sales than more smaller prizes.   

While anyone would be happy to win a $1 million+ jackpot, our research has shown that most players prefer to purchase lottery tickets for a chance to win a larger, “life-changing” jackpot.

A: No. The Grand Number is selected from a separate range of numbers than the first five main numbers.

Think of it as choosing cards from two decks – you draw five cards from the first deck, without replacing any cards as you draw. Then you draw one more card from a second, smaller deck. For other games, the bonus number is an additional number drawn from the same deck, using only the numbers that haven't been drawn yet.

A: The first draw is for the Classic jackpot, where players try to match 6 numbers drawn from 1 to 49. The Classic has a jackpot of $5 million – and subsidiary prizes for matching as few as two main numbers on a line.

The second draw is for the growing Gold Ball jackpot. With each $3 play, players receive a unique 10-digit number which is the Gold Ball Number. A winner is selected every Wednesday and Saturday only from the tickets issued – so a winner is guaranteed. Once the 10-digit number is drawn, a new draw is held to determine the prize amount. The winner will be awarded either a $1 million prize or the Gold Ball jackpot, which starts at $10 million and can grow to over $60 million.

A: Imagine 30 balls: 29 are white balls and one (1) is the gold ball. Each white ball represents a $1 million prize. The gold ball represents the growing jackpot. If a white ball is drawn, the owner of the 10-digit number (selected from all tickets issued) will win $1 million. The Gold Ball jackpot will carry over to the next draw and will grow by $2 million. One white ball will be removed from the next draw (i.e., the next draw will be made from 28 white balls and the gold ball).

If the gold ball is drawn, the owner of the winning Gold Ball Number wins the Gold Ball jackpot. The Gold Ball jackpot starts at $10 million and can grow to over $60 million. Once the gold ball is drawn, the Gold Ball jackpot is reset to $10 million, and all 30 balls are put back into the draw.

A: If you play both LOTTO 6/49 and WESTERN 6/49, you can use Play Both – a feature that plays the same numbers for tickets on both games. Your odds of winning with Play Both are the same as if you have different selections for the two games. Because the game draws are separate, the numbers are as likely to be winning numbers on either game.  

If you want different selections for your LOTTO 6/49 and WESTERN 649 tickets, you can buy tickets for each game individually, or purchase a Lotto Pack that includes both games. Lotto Packs independently generate sets of numbers for each game.

A: If you play both LOTTO MAX and WESTERN MAX, you can use Play Both – a feature that plays the same numbers for tickets on both games. Your odds of winning with Play Both are the same as if you have different selections for the two games. Because the game draws are separate, the numbers are as likely to be winning numbers on either game.  

If you want different selections for your LOTTO MAX and WESTERN MAX tickets, you can buy tickets for each game individually, or purchase a Lotto Pack that includes both games. Lotto Packs independently generate sets of numbers for each game.

A: LIGHTNING LOTTO is a new, innovative, progressive lotto jackpot game that can be won instantly in-store.

The winning lotto numbers are drawn daily before sales begin, so each ticket has a chance to win the progressive jackpot as soon as it is purchased.

A: LIGHTNING LOTTO sales open at 5 am CT / 4 am MT / 3 am PT every day, and tickets can be purchased until the nightly draw cut-off at 9:30 pm CT / 8:30 pm MT / 7:30 pm PT.

Any attempted ticket purchase after that time will result in a rejected transaction and a message at the terminal indicating sales are closed.

A: LIGHTNING LOTTO winning numbers are drawn at the beginning of the day, and those numbers apply to every ticket issued throughout the day (after the draw).

EXTRA winning numbers are drawn in the evening, and apply to tickets issued during the day (before the draw).

If tickets could be purchased after the EXTRA draw, a player could end up with today’s LIGHTNING LOTTO ticket valid for tomorrow’s EXTRA draw.

By restricting sales after 9:30 pm CT / 8:30 pm MT / 7:30 pm PT, we ensure that all tickets are valid for the same day’s draw.

A: The customer display screen will display a prize and that prize amount will be printed on the ticket.

If the ticket is not a winner, the terminal will make a thunderclap/lightning strike sound.

If the ticket is a winner, the terminal will make a thunderclap/lightning strike sound, followed by “Winner!".

The terminal LIGHTNING LOTTO sounds will be timed to play with the customer display screen animation.

A: WCLC is retiring Mail Subscriptions for two main reasons:

The first is due to the increase in popularity of online subscriptions. OSS accounts for 65% of subscription sales, leaving only 35% of purchases to Mail Subscriptions.

The second is based on the increased interest and convenience of subscriptionspot.ca. Players enjoy the visibility that comes with having an online service.

For information: WCLC is the last Canadian lottery offering a Mail Subscription service. As a non-profit, it is irresponsible for us to continue operating a service that costs money to run.

A: Lotto Spot retail locations. Players can purchase advance-play tickets for up to 25 consecutive draws at Lotto Spot locations throughout the region. The games available for Advance-Play purchase are: LOTTO 6/49, LOTTO MAX, DAILY GRAND, WESTERN 649, WESTERN MAX, PICK 2, PICK 3, PICK 4 and Combo Play. o KENO tickets can be purchased for up to 99 draws.

Play Alberta. Players can purchase a subscription on Play Alberta. The subscription will continue until cancelled by the player. PlayNow. Players can purchase up to 104 draws (one year) on PlayNow.

A: We’re aware of the service fee and have advocated with credit card companies not to charge it, but the decision is ultimately out of WCLC’s hands. There are other options for advance play that do not require a credit card for payment: Players can purchase advance play tickets from Lotto Spot retail locations using cash, debit or credit.

Players can purchase advance-play tickets for up to 25 consecutive draws at Lotto Spot locations throughout the region. The games available for Advance-Play purchase are: LOTTO 6/49, LOTTO MAX, DAILY GRAND, WESTERN 649, WESTERN MAX, PICK 2, PICK 3, PICK 4 and Combo Play. KENO tickets can be purchased for up to 99 draws.•

You are encouraged to speak with your credit card provider before making online purchases to see if a fee will be charged.

A: The “CNTL. NO” (control number) is a four-digit number concealed under the latex in one of the Play Areas on the front of the ticket.  One of the ways a retailer can check to see if a ticket is a winner is to scan the barcode on the back of the ticket and manually enter the Control Number. 

Until a ticket is scratched, the retailer cannot complete the validation to determine whether a ticket has won a prize. Because the control number is related to the validation, these numbers are not part of the game and can’t be used to win a prize.