Honest numbers on every scratch-off ticket
Top Lottery Games exists to answer one question the lottery never puts on the ticket: is this a fair deal? We rank 2,613 active scratch-off games across 40 states by expected return — how much a ticket pays back, on average, per dollar spent.
What we do
Every day, an automated pipeline pulls per-tier prize data straight from official state lottery websites — how many of each prize were printed, and how many are still unclaimed. From that we calculate the current expected return of every game we can, then rank them so you can see which tickets are worth your money before you buy.
- Official data only. Numbers come from the state lotteries themselves, not estimates or hearsay.
- Refreshed daily.A game’s return changes as prizes get claimed, so we recompute it every day rather than trusting launch odds.
- Honest about gaps.When a state doesn’t publish enough to calculate a reliable return, we mark it Return N/A instead of guessing.
The exact math is laid out on our how we calculate returns page.
What we are not
We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by any state lottery. Nothing here is financial or gambling advice. A “better” ticket is one that, on average, loses you less — not one that makes money. Nearly every lottery ticket has a negative expected return; the house keeps its edge no matter which game you pick.
Who’s behind it
Hi — I’m Riley Johnson, an engineer in Oklahoma with a minor in mathematics and a long-standing weakness for a good probability problem.
This site started after I read about Mohan Srivastava, the statistician who famously cracked a tic-tac-toe scratch ticket in 2003 — and, more interesting to me, showed that the numbers behind scratch games are knowable if you bother to look. The games can’t be beaten, but they can be measured. State lotteries publish the prize data; almost nobody reads it. So I built something that reads it every day.
Questions, corrections, or a story you’re working on: press@toplotterygames.com · on X at @TopLotteryGames. I read everything.
The writing
Our blog, The Scratch Ledger, publishes plain-English explainers on odds, expected value, and how the lottery actually works. It’s reporting and analysis meant to help you play informed — never a pitch to play more.