TORONTO - After 15 years, a popular national lottery is being scratched.
Canadians will have to cash in on a new lottery on Friday nights starting in September, when the national Lotto Super 7 lottery comes to an end.
Since the Super 7 was launched in June 1994, it has generated sales of $11.44 billion and players have won $6.73 billion, said Ontario Lottery Corporation spokesman Rui Brum in an interview from Sault. Ste. Marie, Ont.
But he noted it has been going for almost 15 years and it's time for a change.
"It's going to make way for a new national lottery game that will offer Canadians even more of what they've been looking for, from what our research tells us -- big jackpots and more millionaires than ever before," said Brum.
The Interprovincial Lottery Corp., which administers five regional lottery corporations, said the final Super 7 draw will be on Sept. 18. Tickets for the new lottery will go on sale Sept. 19, with the first draw set for Sept. 25.
Brum said the name of the new game was not yet being announced and further details would be revealed in the coming months.
News of the game's demise came on the day The Bank of Canada cut its key trendsetting overnight interest rate by 50 basis points to an unheard of low 0.5 per cent, and a day after Statistics Canada announced Canada's economy had shrunk 3.4 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2008.
But Brum said the recession -- and cautious consumers -- weren't behind the decision to scrap the Super 7.
"Not at all. In fact lotteries tend to hold very steady. The one driver of more people playing lotteries would be the size of the jackpots. That has still been the prime determinant of participation in these games," said Brum.
The biggest jackpot of the Super 7 was back on May 17, 2002 when $37.8 million went up for grabs. At the time that was the highest jackpot ever for Canadian lotteries, Brum said.
Four tickets -- two in Quebec, one in Saskatchewan and the other in British Columbia -- shared that Lotto Super 7 jackpot, for a prize of almost $9.5-million each. Among them were 10 men and four women from Grand-Mere, Que., all employees or patrons of two neighbouring bars who pooled their money to buy almost 1,200 tickets for that draw.
Players holding current Super 7 subscriptions will receive further information in the mail from their regional lottery.
On Sept., 18, if the final Super 7 jackpot is not won, it will roll down and be shared among the winners in the next prize category.
