Lotto Max  -  Live your dreams to the max

Draw Procedure

The draw is conducted using a single ball machine containing balls numbered from 1 to 49. Eight balls are drawn at random from the ball machine. The first 7 balls form the winning selection and the 8th ball represents the bonus number.

The draws for Lotto Max, a Canada-wide lottery, take place in Toronto. Loto-Québec and the country’s four other lottery corporations meet under the auspices of the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation* (ILC), where they submit to procedures that are similar in terms of security and integrity. Thus, before every draw, each corporation notifies the ILC in Toronto once it has closed off the participating wagers in its territory.

Once the draw has taken place, the ILC notifies each of the five lottery corporations of the winning draw numbers. These corporations then run the results through their computer systems to determine the number of winners in their territory. Afterwards, the corporations send this information to the ILC so it can establish the countrywide prize division. At that moment, if the prize pool exceeds $50,000,000, the jackpot is capped at $50,000,000 and the excess is divided into additional prizes of $1 million, the Maxmillions. For each of those Maxmillions, an additional selection of 7 numbers from 1 to 49 will be drawn. Those draws are held using an electronic ball machine that is based on a random number generator. This computerized process relies on the same high security standards as those that apply to physical ball machines, under the constant watchful eye of Interprovincial Lottery Corporation external auditors in conjunction with the external auditors of each of the individual lottery corporations, including Loto-Québec.

The results and prize division are distributed mainly through Loto-Québec’s Web site, newspapers and other media.

* Located in Toronto, the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation forms a partnership of Canada’s five lottery corporations: Loto‑Québec, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, the Western Canada Lottery Corporation, the British Columbia Lottery Corporation and the Atlantic Lottery Corporation.

Find out more about how draws are conducted.

Watch our draws exclusively in the Video Zone!

Loto-Québec broadcasts its daily draw results in the Video Zone section of its web site. The results are posted online daily at approximately 10:30 p.m.