Hospital lotteries are becoming increasingly popular in Canada. That’s because, not only do you have a chance to win many fantastic prizes, but you can also donate money to a worthy company: the hospital. And the money goes to hospital-worthy causes, like cancer research. But, of course, the lottery has to sell tickets, and many of them do so by claiming they have the best chance of winning a million dollars. That means, according to them, that if you’re looking for the best odds of winning a million dollars, you should buy a hospital lottery ticket instead of a regular lottery ticket.
Is this true? Is playing hospital lotteries your best chance to win a million dollars? The answer is both, yes and no. On the surface, these lotteries offer the best chance of $1 million. Let’s see an example. One of the most popular hospital lotteries in Canada is the SickKids Lottery. Tickets are $100 each and a maximum of 99,500 are printed. If all the printed tickets are sold, the odds of winning the $1 million grand prize would be 1 in 99,500. That’s actually incredible odds and you can’t beat that.
But of course, the SickKids Lottery only offers the best odds on the surface. Let’s dig a little deeper. For the $100 you pay for a SickKids ticket, you can buy a lot more regular lottery tickets. Let’s take the Ontario 49 game sold in the province of Ontario as an example. Tickets are 50 cents each and the game offers a $1 million jackpot. That means that for the $100 you spend on a SickKids ticket, you can buy 200 Ontario 49 tickets. The odds of winning the Ontario 49 jackpot with just one ticket are 1 in 13,983,816. But, since you could buy 200 tickets, that would improve your odds to 1 in 69,919. Those are better odds than the SickKids lottery at 1 in 99,500.
So there you have it, playing a hospital lottery is not your best chance of winning a million dollars. However, the money you spend on tickets goes to a good cause, so it’s worth playing.
