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As if winning the Lotto Max jackpot isn’t hard enough, along comes news that achieving such a windfall is about to get that much harder – and more expensive.

And in the department of adding insult to injury, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) is falsely stating that the upcoming changes to Lotto Max next month are meant to BENEFIT players!

Here’s the skinny: an OLG media release trumpets: “BIG CHANGES COMING TO LOTTO MAX: Bigger Jackpots, More Prizes, and Better Overall Odds of Winning are Coming April 2026.”

Really?

No. Not really.

Conspicuously missing from the press release is that the odds are getting dramatically worse, not better. Under the current format, one must correctly pick 7 out of 50 numbers (it used to be 49). But the new format means that in order to win the top prize, one must correctly pick 7 out of 52 numbers. Adding two more numbers to the lottery effectively bumps the odds of winning the top prize from roughly 99 million to 1 to 134 million to 1.

And incidentally, the cost of a Lotto Max ticket is going up by 20%, going from $5 to $6. Is this due to the rising cost of paper and toner ink due to inflation? Who knows?

But only in the perverse universe of the OLG is a ticket that costs more yet delivers worse odds deemed to be a GOOD thing for players…

Notably, the national lottery games such as Lotto Max, Lotto 649 and the Daily Grand are operated by the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation (ILC). However, when it comes to media relations and marketing for ILC games, this is handled by the provincial lottery corporations.

And that’s problematic. Even though the OLG has an entire media relations team, calls and emails made by Rebel News are not even acknowledged.

So it was we paid a house call to the swank Toronto headquarters of the OLG. And this is where things became surreal. The security guard on duty said nobody was available to speak with us due to the power outage. Just one thing: all the lights were on and the elevators were operating. And OLG people were coming and going. The scene was reminiscent of the famous dead parrot sketch from Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

Par for the course, additional security was contacted to frogmarch Rebel News off the property.

We drove further south on Yonge Stret to the headquarters of the ILC. What a sight! It appeared that only one person was present at this palatial office. She promised somebody would get back to us. Shockers! Nobody did.

What is staggering about the OLG’s behavior is that it would appear to be business as usual when it comes to a shocking lack of transparency. We speak of the 2007 ombudsman’s report, “A Game of Trust”, which detailed the numerous fraudulent ways in which OLG operates, from turning a blind eye to insider wins to denying jackpots to rightful winners. Indeed, the OLG might very well be the most corrupt crown corporation in the history of crown corporations. And there would appear to be no political will to change course.

And the deceitful ways continue with the OLG now falsely claiming that a more expensive Lotto Max ticket featuring worse odds of winning the jackpot is somehow good news for players!

The crux of the matter is this: provincial governments in Canada have a monopoly when it comes to running lottery games. But why? Why aren’t private sector companies permitted to launch competing lottery products? Isn’t competition a good thing in a capitalist society?

And in the final analysis, all we’re asking for is some truth in advertising? Indeed, our message to the OLG is this: if you’re going to rape us, so be it. Just don’t claim that such a violation is an act of lovemaking.