Lodavo vs Servus Big Share: Weekly Draws or One $1 Million Prize

The Servus Big Share is closed right now. Entries for the eighth annual contest ended on April 30, 2026, the $1 million went to one member in June, and the next window doesn’t open until January. That’s the right place to start a Lodavo vs Servus comparison, because these are two of the very few Canadian products that pay you in prizes for saving, and they run on completely different clocks. Servus is an Alberta credit union that holds your money and draws once a year. Lodavo is a free savings app that rewards the balance you keep at your own bank with tickets in a cash draw every week.

What is the difference between Lodavo and Servus?

Both are prize-linked savings products: you save, and the saving earns you a chance to win cash. The mechanics are what differ. With Servus, you move your banking to an Alberta credit union, and every $500 your balances grow between January and April earns five entries toward a single $1 million prize. With Lodavo, the savings stay in the account you already use, and that balance earns free tickets in a draw every week of the year.

Those differences decide who each one is for. Because Servus holds the deposits, it can put a million dollars behind one draw and guarantee your money at the same time. It also means joining. The Big Share is open to Servus members, and Servus membership runs through Alberta: you qualify by living, working, worshipping or attending school in the province. If none of those describe you, the contest isn’t available at any price. Lodavo has no account to open, so there’s no membership to qualify for either.

The third difference is the calendar. Servus counts a four-month window and draws once. Lodavo counts every week and draws every week. Over a year that’s one chance against fifty-two, for very different amounts of money.

How the Servus Big Share works

Servus Credit Union is Alberta’s largest credit union, and The Big Share is its flagship member contest, now in its eighth year. Every $500 your savings and investment balances grow (opens in a new tab) during the contest period earns five entries, up to a maximum of 5,000 entries per member across all entry types. The 2026 window ran from January 1 to April 30, and the prize is one payment of $1,000,000 by direct deposit.

Which accounts count

Entries are calculated across your whole membership, not one account. Chequing, savings and term deposits count, and so do registered products like a TFSA, RRSP, FHSA or GIC. That’s why the contest sits where it does in the calendar: the money most members move in the first four months of the year, ahead of the RRSP deadline and into fresh TFSA room, is exactly the growth that earns entries.

What the entry cap actually means

Five entries per $500 sounds open-ended, and it isn’t. It stops at 5,000 entries, which works out to $500,000 of growth in four months. Almost nobody reaches that. What the cap really does is stop the draw from being bought outright by the largest balances, which is worth knowing if you assumed the biggest depositor always wins.

Who can enter

Two limits matter. You have to be a Servus member, which is the Alberta requirement above, and the contest is open to members 18 and over, excluding Quebec residents. As with any Canadian contest there’s no purchase necessary and an alternate route in, which for The Big Share is a hand-written essay mailed to Servus by the entry deadline. A skill-testing question applies before the prize is awarded.

What Servus pays while you wait

The draw is the headline, but an account is still an account. Simple Save (opens in a new tab) pays 0.05% with no monthly fee, and Personal Premium Savings is tiered up to 0.75% for balances of $100,000 and above, per the Servus rates page (opens in a new tab). Both figures are as of August 2026. Deposit protection works differently from a bank, and in one respect it’s better: the Credit Union Deposit Guarantee Corporation (opens in a new tab) guarantees 100% of deposits held at Alberta credit unions with no dollar cap, where CDIC coverage stops at $100,000 per category.

Where Lodavo fits, with no membership to join

Lodavo is free and works with virtually any Canadian bank or credit union, Servus included. You connect an existing savings or chequing account through Plaid (opens in a new tab), and from then on the balance you keep saved earns tickets: one for every $25. There’s nothing to transfer.

The draw runs every week. At least $100 goes to a user each week, and the jackpot pays up to $10,000. Our provably fair page shows how each result is drawn and verified, and the contest rules cover eligibility and odds. New to the idea? Our guide to prize-linked savings in Canada covers where it came from and why it’s legal here.

Two draws, side by side

The table above compares the two products. This one compares the two draws:

Can you use both together?

Yes, and Servus is the rare case where the two genuinely stack. Servus sits well within Plaid’s Canadian coverage, so a member can connect that same savings account to Lodavo. The balance earns Big Share entries during the January-to-April window and Lodavo tickets every week of the year.

Nothing is doubled and no rule is bent here. These are two separate contests run by two separate organizations, and they happen to look at the same savings. If you’re weighing the other Canadian options too, we compared every standing draw in the country in our roundup of the best prize-linked savings apps in Canada.

When Servus is the better choice

For a lot of Albertans, it may be. Servus is the better tool if:

• You live, work, worship or attend school in Alberta, which is what makes membership possible in the first place.
• You want the biggest number on the table. One million dollars is a hundred times Lodavo’s jackpot.
• You hold more than $100,000 in deposits. The Alberta guarantee covers them in full with no cap, which is genuinely better than CDIC’s limit.
• Your balances grow in the first four months of the year anyway. If you’re funding an RRSP before the deadline or topping up a TFSA in January, the entries cost you nothing extra.
• You want a full-service financial institution behind the draw: chequing, mortgages, investments and branches, rather than an app that does one thing.

If you’re outside Alberta, or you’d rather not move your banking

This is where most Canadians land, and the answer is short: there’s nothing to qualify for. Lodavo is free, open to legal residents of Canada at the age of majority, and it works with the bank you’re already using, so your rate, your branch and your deposit insurance all stay exactly as they are. Quebec is included, which matters here, since The Big Share excludes it.

What chasing entries actually costs

Servus pays a rate and Lodavo doesn’t, and that gap is narrower than it looks, because Lodavo isn’t standing in for your savings rate. It sits on top of whatever your own bank already pays you. The comparison worth making is what it costs to chase entries: moving $10,000 from a 2% account into Simple Save at 0.05% would give up about $195 of interest over a year, for one chance in a very large pool. That’s a real price, and it’s the version of The Big Share that’s worth thinking twice about. The version that costs nothing is leaving the money where it earns the most.

When one chance a year isn’t enough

The Big Share is built around a single moment. That’s part of its appeal, and it’s also its weakness as a savings habit: eight months of the year, there’s nothing to look forward to and nothing counting. A weekly draw isn’t better because the prize is bigger, because it isn’t. It’s better at the thing prize-linked savings is supposed to do, which is give you a reason to keep the balance up this week, and then next week.

One draw a year is worth entering if you can get in. Fifty-two is worth having either way. 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.