A rare lottery draws worth $128 million is ready to be distributed amongst the lottery players.
The Lotto Max draw has a jackpot worth $70 million followed by $58 million in Maxmillion prizes which accumulate to $128. This is said to be the biggest lottery draw in the history of Canada.
An official of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Cooperation Tony Bitoni mentioned that he hadn’t seen such a run in his recent memory. It is rare to have such an amount being distributed in the lottery, not every lottery drawing is this huge.
The last time someone won a Lotto Max jackpot was on 24 April. Ever since then the jackpot has remained untouched, which means that the prize amount has increased for 7 weeks.
The 24 April draw was worth a jackpot of $10 million and was shared between two winning tickets in Ontario. The next jackpot started rolling on 27 April which makes it exactly 7 weeks to the current jackpot.
Lotto Max is drawn bi-weekly and players are supposed to match seven numbers in order to win the jackpot prize. The tickets are priced at $5 which is peanuts as compared to the prize you have a chance to win in return.
Last time the jackpot reached $70 million in February and was won by a couple in Noelville, Ontario. That winning couple were dedicated lottery players but had never won so big. The couple kept aside a portion of their winnings for their children’s future. They also hired a team of financial advisers in order to make the best decision with respect to the windfall. $70 million is a lot of money and if not invested and used wisely one can end up losing it all.
Bitoni revealed that since his appointment he has handed out many $70 million prizes. According to him, such huge wins have always been life-changing for the winners.
He further revealed that sometimes winners even show him their bank statements with a closing figure of a couple of hundred bucks. It must feel incredible to see those couple of dollars change into millions overnight.
The odds of winning a jackpot are one in 33.2 million in a single drawing.
The lottery officials urge winners to sign the back of their winning tickets so that they can safely claim them. The lottery ticket is a bearer instrument so whoever has their signature on it can claim it. This prevents others from using your lottery ticket to claim the prize amount. Lottery officials also advise players to be mindful of the time limit on lottery claims. Many winners get so late in claiming their prize that they end up losing the opportunity to acquire it.
