Scratch-Off Value Report: We Analyzed 2,641 Lottery Tickets Across 40 States

Every day we pull official prize data for thousands of scratch-off games and calculate what each one returns. We rarely stop to look at all of it at once — so we did. Here is what 2,641 active scratch-off tickets across 40 states (our full dataset as of June 21, 2026) reveal about what a lottery dollar actually buys.

The average U.S. scratch-off returns about $0.68 for every $1 spent, and the median is nearly identical. In plain terms: before you scratch a thing, the typical ticket already keeps about 32 cents of your dollar.

Almost nothing beats the house

Of the 2,065 games that publish enough data to price, more than 99% return less than $1 per $1 played — the house edge, working exactly as designed. About 61% return less than 70 cents on the dollar, and a few dip under 50 cents. Only 15 games — roughly 0.7% — currently return more than a dollar, and as we'll see, those are temporary quirks, not loopholes.

The more a ticket costs, the more it pays back (per dollar)

The clearest pattern in the data: pricier tickets are, on average, less bad. Group every game by its sticker price and the average return climbs steadily from the $1 rack to the $30 rack.

A $30 ticket returns about 84 cents on the dollar on average, versus 58 cents for a $1 ticket — a 26-cent gap. It isn't that pricier tickets are a good deal; they still lose money. They just lose *less*. The trend even flattens at the very top, where $50 games average a hair below $30 games. You can sort the whole database by price and return on the all-games page.

The best tickets in America right now

These are the highest-returning individual games in the dataset. Almost all cost $10–$30, and one returns nearly five dollars per dollar — more on why below.

Because the live leaders change every day, the current ones always live on today's top-returning tickets and the full rankings.

…and the worst

At the other end sit games that are nearly tapped out — most of their prizes already claimed, yet still on sale. The single worst returns just 7 cents on the dollar. Many of the lowest-returning tickets are $2–$3 crossword games late in their run.

This is the strongest case for checking before you buy: two tickets at the same price, on the same counter, can differ by 50 cents or more on the dollar.

Does your state matter?

Somewhat — but read the caveat. Averaging every priceable game by state, here are the most and least generous, among the 30 states with at least 15 priced games:

Treat this loosely. A state's average is shaped by which games it publishes enough data to price, and by a few outliers — Massachusetts ranks first partly because several older, big-jackpot games are in the rare end-of-life window we describe next. It's a snapshot of available data, not proof one lottery is more generous than another. Each state's live ranking is on the states page.

The 15 tickets where the math flips

A small group of games currently shows a return above $1 — led by Kentucky's Wild Cash 300X at about $4.96 per dollar. These aren't loopholes; they're end-of-life games. When a game has sold most of its tickets but a giant top prize is still unclaimed, the value concentrated in the few remaining tickets can briefly exceed their price. The catch: your odds of actually hitting that prize stay tiny, and the average is pulled up by a single enormous annuity prize counted at face value. We break down the mechanics in how we calculate returns.

The jackpots still on the board

If you play for the dream rather than the math, the biggest unclaimed top prizes in the data are $25 million tickets — two left on Massachusetts's Mega Money and one each on a pair of Florida $50 games — plus a $20 million prize on Texas's $20 Million Supreme. In expected-value terms they're long gone, but they're the prizes still technically in play. The current list lives on biggest unclaimed prizes.

How we did this

Every figure here comes from official state lottery prize data we collect daily, snapshotted June 21, 2026. We priced the 2,065 of 2,641 active games (about 78%) that publish enough detail — remaining prizes plus either a print run or overall odds — to calculate a current expected return; the rest we leave as Return N/A rather than guess, and they're excluded from the averages. Annuity prizes are counted at advertised face value, which can flatter a few end-of-life games. The full method is on how we calculate returns, and the primer is what expected value means.

The unavoidable takeaway: scratch-offs are, on average, a losing bet — the typical ticket returns about 68 cents on the dollar, and more than 99% return less than they cost. Data like this won't make you a winner; it just helps you lose less and play with your eyes open. Treat it as entertainment with a known price, and if it stops being fun, the National Problem Gambling Helpline is free, confidential, and open 24/7.