Which lottery ticket has the best odds in Quebec? Loto-Québec's numbers

If you want to know which lottery ticket has the best odds in Quebec, Loto-Québec already publishes the answer. Every scratch ticket has its own page listing what it costs, how often it pays a prize, and how much of each dollar it gives back. Put a few of those pages side by side and they say close to the same thing: a gratteux pays something about one time in three and returns 62 to 67 cents on the dollar, against 47 to 50 cents on the big draws. None of them puts the odds on your side. The numbers below all come from Loto-Québec’s own game pages.

Which lottery ticket has the best odds in Quebec?

Scratch tickets, on both of the measures Loto-Québec publishes. A gratteux pays some prize about one time in three and returns 62% to 67% of what players spend on it. The draw games pay about one time in six and return 47% to 50%. Every game still keeps a share of each dollar, which is what makes it a lottery.

Notice Québec Max. It pays a prize more often than Lotto 6/49 and gives back the least of anything on the list, so “wins more often” and “pays back more” turn out to be two different questions. The gap between the scratch tickets and the draws is the wider one though. At $3 either way, a gratteux returns about 48 cents more than Lotto 6/49 does.

That still leaves you behind. A ticket that returns 65% is a ticket that keeps 35 cents of every dollar, every time. If the jackpot is what you’re after rather than the odds, the two big draws have their own comparison.

What Loto-Québec publishes about every scratch ticket

Open any scratch ticket on Loto-Québec’s site (opens in a new tab) and an “In brief” panel gives you the cost, the top prize, the approximate odds of winning a prize, the approximate odds of winning the top prize, and the theoretical payoff rate. That last one is the share of ticket sales the game is built to return in prizes.

Six tickets on sale right now, across the price range.

Loto-Québec figures, read from each game’s page in September 2026. Tickets come and go, so check the one you’re holding.

The ticket with the best odds pays back the least

Mots cachés has the best odds of any prize on that list, at 1 in 2.7, and the lowest payoff rate, at 62%. Plinko has the worst odds of any prize, at 1 in 3.5, and the joint best payoff rate. Gagnant à vie pays out more often than either of the other $5 tickets and has by far the longest odds on its top prize, at 1 in 6,000,000.

So a “luckiest gratteux” list has to decide which of those three things it means before it can rank anything, and the ranking flips depending on which one it picks. That’s why the lists you find online disagree with each other, and why Loto-Québec publishes the numbers instead of a winner.

What a win usually looks like

Small, and often just your money back. On Scrabble, a $3 ticket, the single most likely win is three words for $3, at 1 in 6.6. Four words pays $5 at 1 in 17.1. The $30,000 top prize sits at 1 in 1,291,667. The same shape repeats across the range, because the small tiers are what keep the overall odds near 1 in 3.

Do some gratteux still have prizes left?

Yes, and Loto-Québec publishes that too. Its prize claims status report (opens in a new tab) lists more than 30 scratch games and, for each prize level, how many prizes exist and how many have been claimed. It’s updated weekly. If the $100,000 prize on a game has already been collected, the report says so.

That report is the one real version of the question people are asking when they search for the most winning gratteux, and it comes with a caveat Loto-Québec states itself. Because tickets are on the market, the figures don’t account for prizes claimed since the last publication. The odds line on every game page carries the same warning: the odds of winning a prize can vary, depending on the number of claimed prizes and the quantity of printed tickets.

So the report tells you what was true last week across a whole print run. It can’t tell you anything about the specific ticket in the rack in front of you.

Can anything actually improve your odds?

No, and the clearest statement of that comes from Loto-Québec. Its Wise Play (opens in a new tab) site says the odds of losing are always greater than the odds of winning, and that games are designed to leverage chance while giving the house an edge. It also spells out that each new play carries the same odds as the last one.

Most gratteux folklore assumes the opposite, though.

• A roll that hasn’t paid isn’t “due.” Each ticket was printed with its result already fixed, and nothing about the tickets sold before it changes what’s under the coating.
• Buying five of the same ticket doesn’t stack up. Five plays at 1 in 3 is five separate 1 in 3 chances, and it costs five times as much.
• A “lucky” dépanneur sells more winners because it sells more tickets. The winners were spread through the print run long before the box was delivered.

The one thing you genuinely control is how much you spend, and Quebec spends a lot. Close to $3 billion a year goes through Loto-Québec’s lottery products, which is $394 per adult counting everyone who never buys a ticket.

What if the $5 stayed in your account?

A gratteux on Friday is a few dollars for a couple of minutes of hoping, and there’s nothing wrong with buying one. At a 67% payoff rate though, a $5-a-week habit costs about $86 over a year, and the fun is over once you’ve scratched it.

Lodavo is a free app that gives you a draw every week without the ticket. What you save earns you free tickets in a cash draw, so the more you save, the more tickets you get, up to a top prize of $10,000. Every week at least one user takes home a guaranteed prize of at least $100. Your savings never leave your own account, and you never buy anything, so win or not, you finish the week with more saved than you started.

Where that leaves you at the counter

If you want the best published odds of winning something, that’s a cheap word game at about 1 in 2.7. If you want the most money back per dollar, it’s one of the $5 tickets at 67%. If you want the shortest walk to a life-changing amount, none of them are close, and the draw games are worse. Whichever you pick, the house keeps its cut, and Loto-Québec is the one telling you so.

A ticket is fine as entertainment. It’s a poor plan. The version where the money stays yours is worth trying at least once.

Ready to have something to check on Sunday without paying for it? Download Lodavo free on the Apple App Store (opens in a new tab) or Google Play Store (opens in a new tab) and earn your first tickets just by saving this week.

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.