Lodavo vs Lotto Max: One Costs $6 a Play, the Other Is Free

A Lotto Max play costs $6. It buys four selections of seven numbers, drawn Tuesday and Friday, and a 1 in 33,446,140 chance at a jackpot that climbs to $90 million. Lodavo costs nothing and gives you a free ticket in a weekly cash draw for every $25 you already have saved. That makes Lodavo vs Lotto Max a question about the same $6. Both are a chance at cash. Only one of them costs $6 to enter, and only one leaves you with the money on Saturday.

What is the difference between Lodavo and Lotto Max?

Lotto Max sells you a chance for $6, and the $6 is spent whatever happens next. Lodavo gives you the chance for free, on savings that stay in your own bank account. One is something you buy. The other is a reward for money you were keeping anyway.

Play both draws every week and that’s $624 a year. Save the same $624 instead and it’s still $624, and once it’s sitting in your account it earns you 24 free tickets in every weekly Lodavo draw.

How Lotto Max works

A $6 Lotto Max play gives you four selections of seven numbers between 1 and 52, entered in the Tuesday or Friday draw. Match all seven and you take the jackpot, which starts at $10 million and grows until someone wins it or it hits the $90 million cap. On one play, the chance of that is 1 in 33,446,140.

What changed in April 2026

The game was rebuilt on April 14, 2026. OLG (opens in a new tab) raised the price from $5 to $6 and added a fourth selection, lifted the jackpot cap from $80 million to $90 million, and improved the overall odds of winning any prize from about 1 in 7 to 1 in 5.8. Every draw now carries at least ten $100,000 prizes, one for every $1 million of jackpot, rising to 90 at the cap. MaxMillions still appear once the jackpot reaches $50 million.

What “1 in 5.8” gets you

Usually another ticket. A free play is the most common Lotto Max prize by a wide margin, at 1 in 7.0, so roughly 83% of wins hand back a play rather than money. Across everyone who plays, the game returns 48 cents of every dollar, which Loto-Québec (opens in a new tab) publishes on its own game page as the theoretical payoff rate. Canadians put about $10.5 billion a year through the terminals.

How saving with Lodavo earns you free tickets

Lodavo links to the savings or chequing account you already have and checks the balance once a week, at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday. Every full $25 in there earns you one free ticket in that week’s draw, up to 1,000 tickets. The savings never leave your bank, so they keep earning whatever rate they already earn.

How the draw runs

Each ticket carries seven numbers from 0 to 99. The seven winning numbers are picked in advance and locked behind a published hash before anyone chooses their numbers, then revealed one a day from Monday to Sunday at 8 p.m. ET. The ticket with the most matches takes that week’s prize of at least $100, and a ticket matching all seven takes $10,000. Anyone can check afterwards that the numbers weren’t changed, on our provably fair page.

What it costs

Nothing. There’s no plan fee, no minimum balance, and no purchase of any kind, which is part of why this is a contest under Canadian law rather than a lottery. Winners answer a skill-testing question before they’re paid, and there’s a mail-in route in the contest rules for anyone who’d rather not link an account at all. We go through the legal line in more detail in is prize-linked savings gambling.

Can you play Lotto Max and use Lodavo?

Yes, and neither one gets in the way of the other. Lodavo opens no account and takes no money, so it sits on top of the bank you already use. Buy your Friday ticket if you enjoy it. The savings in your account earn their tickets either way.

A lottery ticket is entertainment you pay for, and there’s nothing wrong with paying for entertainment. Lodavo is a reward attached to money you were keeping anyway. Plenty of people will do both, and the only thing that changes is that the money left in the account is now earning something too.

When Lotto Max is the better choice

On the thing most people actually play for, Lotto Max wins on both counts. Its top prize is $90 million against Lodavo’s $10,000, and the odds of taking it are far shorter: 1 in 33,446,140 on a single play, against roughly 1 in 16 billion for one Lodavo ticket to match all seven numbers. If a life-changing number is the point, no free draw is going to match that. That compares the two draws, though, not the two prices. Only one of them charges $6 to get in.

Lotto Max is also the better fit if:

• You want the ritual. Buying a ticket and checking it Friday night is the product for a lot of people, and it needs no app, no sign-up and no bank connection.
• You’d rather not connect a bank account to anything. Lodavo needs a connected account to work out your tickets. A ticket from the corner store needs nothing from you but $6.
• You’re in a group pool at work. Lodavo tickets belong to one account holder and can’t be shared, sold or transferred.
• You want small wins in your hand. Ontario pays prizes under $1,000 (opens in a new tab) at a lottery counter, though a store is only required to pay $50 of it. The threshold and the route vary by province. A Lodavo prize arrives by Interac e-Transfer or bank transfer once the claim steps are done.

When the free ticket makes more sense

If the appeal is having a chance at cash rather than the size of the number, the comparison changes. Lodavo’s draw runs every week, at least $100 goes to a user every time, and being in it costs nothing. The $6 you didn’t spend is still in your account, and next Sunday it counts toward your tickets.

What a $6 ticket is worth when you buy it

A lottery has to pay out less than it takes in, or there’d be nothing left to run it. At 48 cents on the dollar, a $6 Lotto Max play is worth about $2.88 the moment you buy it, which leaves the average player $3.12 down before a number is drawn.

A free ticket costs nothing, so there’s no price to weigh the odds against. Longer odds on a free ticket still put you ahead of shorter odds on a $6 one. A win is still luck rather than a plan. But you can’t come out behind on a draw you didn’t pay to enter.

So who pays for the prizes?

A lottery’s prize pool is the players’ money. Those 48 cents on the dollar aren’t a fee somebody charges on top, they’re the pool itself: everyone who buys a ticket and loses is funding whoever wins. A $90 million jackpot is that big because millions of plays lost.

We make money from companies, not from you. As you save, the app suggests financial products that might help you save more or earn better rewards, and if you sign up for one, that partner pays us a referral fee at no extra cost to you. That’s what pays for the draw. Ignore every offer and your savings tickets keep arriving each week. Most free money apps work the same way, and we go through the models in how free money apps make money in Canada.

Lodavo won’t make you rich and it doesn’t pay a rate. It gives the savings you already have a weekly chance at cash, without asking you to move money, switch banks or buy anything. If that’s the appeal, it’s also worth reading how prize-linked savings works more broadly, because Lodavo is one version of a much older idea.

Where the same $6 ends up

Six dollars twice a week adds up to $624 a year. Spent on tickets, almost all of it stays with the lottery, and 1 in 33,446,140 is long enough that a realistic expectation of the jackpot is zero. Kept in your savings account, it’s $624 you still have, and about 24 free tickets in every weekly Lodavo draw. Neither one is a way to get rich. One of them leaves you with your money.

Want a chance at cash every week without paying for the ticket? Get Lodavo free on the Apple App Store (opens in a new tab) or Google Play Store (opens in a new tab).

Terms and conditions apply. No purchase necessary (alternate method of entry available). Skill-testing question required. Open to legal residents of Canada who are the age of majority. Odds depend on the number of eligible entries received. Full rules and odds at our contest rules.