Gambling can be fun but here’s the important warning message that all players must never forget: YOU MIGHT LOSE. It’s simple: all gambling carries risk, that’s what gambling is. Whether you bet on horses or roulette wheels there is the chance that something else might happen and you lose your stake.
But the risks are greater in some forms of gambling than others. That’s all because of the laws of probability. Toss a coin and only two things can happen. You have a 50% chance of calling it right. Roll a dice hoping for a six and you risk it landing with one of five other numbers coming up. So your chance is 1 in 6.
Compare that with playing the lottery. In Lotto Max, you can win an amazing jackpot… or get zilch. In fact, zilch is a lot more likely. The chance of winning the jackpot is 1 in 33,294,800.
Those odds are the same as flipping a coin and correctly calling heads 25 times in a row. Or try Lotto 6/49. That offers jackpot odds of 1 in 13,983,816. The message here is that the gap between everyday probability and lottery probability is huge.
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Online casino games are a bit different. Blackjack can even offer odds close to evens when played with optimum strategy. Roulette gives you around 1 in 37 on a straight bet or close to evens on a color.
The Return to Player percentage shows the average amount players win back over time. Slots vary – check the published RTP percentages for the exact probability figures. Fo online casinos, they are usually between 94% and 97% so you’ll get your money back on the vast majority of spins, Casino.org Canada ranks the best and the RTP is a huge ranking factor. The recent rise in the number of operators in the country means it is the operators’ best interest to have high RTP rates, which of course benefits the players.
Blackjack has an RTP above 99% when played with correct basic strategy. Roulette is lower at around 94.7% on American wheels (with two zeros) or 97.3% on European wheels.
A higher RTP suggests a fairer game – but it never removes the risk. The house always has the edge because the casino has to make its money somehow.
In comparison, stats show that the lottery offers you almost no chance of winning the big money. Lotto Max has odds of 1 in 33 million, Lotto 6/49 offers odds of 1 in almost 14 million.
How likely is that?
The odds of being struck by lightning in Canada in a year are about 1 in 1,200,000, the odds of discovering gold on your own land are less than 1 in 3 million and the chance of being attacked by a bear in the wild is about 1 in 2.1 million. Be warned that all those extreme events are a lot more likely than winning the lotto.
The huge odds are one of the reasons lottery winners make headlines. It shows you can defy the odds. In May 2025, Justin Simporios from British Columbia won $80 million in a Lotto Max draw. That’s the largest single-person jackpot in Canadian history.
Also in 2025, Charlie Coffey from Toronto, won a $25 million Lotto Max jackpot.
The 80-year-old at first thought he’d won $25,000. Later he discovered it was $25 million instead. Alberta’s David Serkin, a cancer survivor, has incredibly won about $2.5 million in three separate jackpots: $500,000, then $1 million, then another $1 million.
On the casino side, there are life-changing wins but they are usually a bit smaller and less eye-catching. For example, someone won CA$1,000,000 playing Mega Money Wheel at Grand Mondial Casino in 2024. Another won CA$480,000 on Mining Pots of Gold at Luxury Casino in May 2025.
And in poker, some Canadians have taken home huge sums through tournaments. Poorya ‘Nazar’ Nazari from Ontario won US$3,000,000 in the 2009 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. Alex Livingston from Nova Scotia was placed third in the 2019 WSOP Main Event. He took home US$4 million.
Then Alex added a second bracelet in 2024 and his current totals surpass US$8.5 million in earnings. The lesson is there’s always a possibility but it can be rare. Many, many more players don’t win anything.
There’s a clarity to playing casinos: you can measure your odds. Games are designed to give small wins often enough to keep you playing. In the lottery, the chance of winning is almost non-existent… but those jackpots are excitingly huge.
Both carry risk and both create excitement. But playing the lottery is a long shot at fantasy wins while casino games give you better odds and more modest winnings. Players can choose how to enjoy their gaming. Depending on mood, you can make a choice between massively long odds or smaller, more frequent wins.
Casinos offer relaxing, fun games where skill, strategy, and RTP matter. Lotteries sell dreams on near-impossible odds.
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