The idea to turn only a handful of coins into a life-changing prize has enticed many people over the years to buy a lottery ticket and give it a try. Even the least money-focused has at least once tried their luck. Unfortunately, the chances to hit the jackpot appears to be not as high as we wished to be.
Nevertheless, hope dies last and that is the reason why such a great number of people buy the lottery tickets, waiting for the Powerball to “choose” their lucky numbers. What is more is that people get encouraged when they hear the enticing story of someone, who hit the jackpot.
Every country boasts the story of big jackpots and Canada is not an exception to the rule. The ones, who are interested in lottery most probably have heard the name of Zhe Wang, the woman who stroke the largest-ever lottery jackpot worth $64 million. The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. (OLG) reported that the lucky woman did not need to share the prize, as she was the only one to hold the winning ticket.
Ms. Wang pocketed the massive winning only by buying one single Lotto 6/ 49 ticket at a Petro-Canada station in Mississauga on 17th October 2015 for a top jackpot of $64million. This amount set a new record in the Canadian lottery history and it is still recognized as the biggest ever.
Two years earlier, and more precisely in April 2013, the largest jackpot at that time topped the impressive size of $63.4 million.
The third largest lottery jackpot was won by a group of workers in 2005. The amount, which they shared with each other was as high as $54.3 million.
It is interesting to note that Lotto 6/ 49 is one of the three lotteries in Canada, allowing players to choose 6 numbers out of 49 in total. Every Wednesday and Saturday the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation announce the winning numbers. The idea is to match all the 6 drawn numbers in order to strike the jackpot. In case that more people match all the winning 6 numbers, the jackpot is split between them. The players, who match at least 3 numbers also get a cash prize.
In 2004, the national lottery decided to increase the prices of the lottery tickets, which resulted in higher cash awards. Prior to the increase of the tickets’ prices, the biggest Lotto 6/ 49 jackpot was reported to be $26.4 million. After the reported jackpots, the national Canadian lotteries witnessed an increase in the number of tickets, which they sell.
