Quick answer: Most National Lottery scratchcards listed in September 2026 have overall odds between 1 in 3.09 and 1 in 3.83, so roughly one card in three or four wins something. That figure counts any prize, including wins that only return the card's price. Odds of the top prize are far longer, often 1 in 2 million or more.
Key takeaways
- "Overall odds" cover every prize, and on most cards between 30% and 40% of winning cards pay back exactly what the card cost.
- Top-prize odds are a separate number. You can work them out from the game procedures: divide the print run by the number of top prizes.
- Dearer cards barely change your chance of winning anything, but they pay out a bigger share of sales as prizes: about 60% on £1 cards, rising to 72% on the £10 card.
Prefer to play online? MrRaffle's online scratch cards start from 10p, based on the game, and new players can claim free tickets.
How likely is it to win on a scratchcard?
Of the 56 National Lottery scratchcards listed on 24 September 2026, 55 had overall odds between 1 in 3.09 and 1 in 3.83. The odd one out, a £1 card, was 1 in 9.28. On a typical card you can expect roughly one winner in every three or four cards, averaged across the whole print run.
That last part matters. The odds describe millions of cards, not the handful in your hand. At 1 in 3.5, a single card loses about 71% of the time, so the chance that four cards all lose is 0.714 x 0.714 x 0.714 x 0.714, or about 26%. Roughly one time in four, a buyer of four such cards wins nothing.
What does "overall odds" on a scratchcard actually mean?
Overall odds are your chance of winning any prize at all, from the smallest to the top one. They come from dividing the number of cards printed by the number of winning cards. Because most winning cards carry small prizes, the headline figure tells you very little about your chance of a big win.
Every National Lottery card has a published game procedures document listing the price, overall odds, print run and how many prizes of each size were printed. Read those tables and a pattern appears. On 48 of the 56 cards listed on 24 September 2026, between 30% and 40% of all winning cards paid out exactly the price of the card. You scratch, you "win", and you are back where you started.
So overall odds of 1 in 3.2 really mean: one in three cards wins, about a third of those wins are your money back, and most of the rest are small multiples of it.
Which scratchcard has the best odds?
It depends which odds you mean. For any prize, the best-odds National Lottery cards on 24 September 2026 were two £5 cards at 1 in 3.09. For the top prize, cards with small top prizes win easily: one £2 card with a £100 top prize had about 1 in 2,530 odds of that prize at launch.
Five cards from that list, one at each price:
| Card (game number) | Price | Overall odds (any prize) | Top prize | Top-prize odds at launch | Top prizes left on 24 Sep 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £100,000 Gold (1475) | £1 | 1 in 3.79 | £100,000 | 1 in 8,777,916 | 3 of 5 |
| £100 Tripler (1495) | £2 | 1 in 3.32 | £100 | 1 in 2,530 | 136 of 2,992 |
| Frosty Fortunes (1522) | £3 | 1 in 3.28 | £300,000 | 1 in 5,208,804 | 5 of 5 |
| £1 Million (1472) | £5 | 1 in 3.21 | £1,000,000 | 1 in 2,404,780 | 1 of 3 |
| When It's Gold Outside (1526) | £10 | 1 in 3.14 | £4,000,000 | 1 in 1,994,963 | 4 of 4 |
Top-prize odds at launch are the initial print run divided by the number of top prizes, as printed in each card's game procedures. They are not today's odds, because cards have been sold and prizes claimed since.
"Best odds" usually means one of three things:
- Best chance of any win: look at overall odds. The spread is narrow, from 1 in 3.09 to 1 in 3.83 on 55 of the 56 cards.
- Best chance of the top prize: look at top-prize odds, and at how big that top prize is.
- Best value overall: look at the share of sales paid back as prizes, also in the game procedures.
No single card wins on all three.
Do more expensive scratch cards have better odds?
Not much, for winning anything. Overall odds on £2 to £10 cards all sat between about 1 in 3.1 and 1 in 3.6, and most £1 cards were slightly worse at around 1 in 3.8. What changes with price is the prize fund: £1 cards pay out about 60% of their face value as prizes, £5 cards about 70%.
| Price | Cards listed (24 Sep 2026) | Overall odds range | Share of face value paid as prizes |
|---|---|---|---|
| £1 | 6 | 1 in 3.79 to 1 in 3.83 (one card 1 in 9.28) | 60.0% to 61.5% |
| £2 | 12 | 1 in 3.19 to 1 in 3.53 | 64.5% to 67.0% |
| £3 | 13 | 1 in 3.11 to 1 in 3.60 | 66.3% to 68.0% |
| £5 | 24 | 1 in 3.09 to 1 in 3.52 | 68.5% to 71.0% |
| £10 | 1 | 1 in 3.14 | 72.2% |
The "share of face value" is the value of all prizes in the initial print run divided by the price of every card printed. It is an average across millions of cards, not what any one player gets back, and on every card listed it was well under 100%.
How to read scratchcard odds: a worked example
Take the £5 card called £1 Million (game 1472). Its game procedures and the National Lottery's list on 24 September 2026 give you everything you need: the print run, the full prize table, the number of top prizes and how many are left. Here is how to read them in six steps.
- Find the game procedures. Every card on the All Scratchcards page has a "Read procedures" link.
- Read the overall odds and print run. The card has overall odds of 1 in 3.21, and 7,214,340 cards were in the initial print run. That works out at about 2.25 million winning cards.
- Look at the smallest prizes. There were 817,706 prizes of £5, the price of the card, and 961,888 prizes of £10. Together that is 79% of all winning cards.
- Find the top prize count. There were 3 prizes of £1,000,000. Divide 7,214,340 by 3 and you get 1 in 2,404,780, the same figure the procedures print.
- Check how many top prizes are left. On 24 September 2026 the list showed 1 of 3 remaining.
- Check the prize fund. The procedures say prizes make up 69.43% of the face value of the print run.
Put together: about one card in three wins, four out of five wins are £5 or £10, and the £1 million prize was about 1 in 2.4 million at launch, with one of three still out there.
How can you check which scratchcards still have top prizes left?
The National Lottery's All Scratchcards page shows "top prizes left" for every card, next to a link to its game procedures. Check it before you buy. On 24 September 2026, 11 of the 56 listed cards showed no top prizes left, and a card can still be sold after its last top prize has been claimed.
The National Lottery's Code of Practice on Top Prize Management explains why. Once the last top prize in a game is validated, Allwyn (the company that runs the National Lottery) must stop further packs being activated: within 24 hours for cards with top prizes over £50,000, and within 48 hours for smaller ones. But shops are allowed to keep selling cards from packs already activated.
The Code also says the website should be updated within one working day, so the online list is the quickest place to check. Bear in mind it tells you how many top prizes remain, not how many cards are unsold, so you still cannot work out today's exact odds.
How do online scratch cards show their odds?
Online scratch cards usually publish a prize table with the odds of each prize tier written as "1 in X". The National Lottery's online Instant Win Games, for example, list an overall chance of winning, an expected payout percentage and an approximate "1 in X" figure for every prize amount in each game's procedures.
One example is £100,000 Cash Multiplier, a £1 online game. Its procedures give a 1 in 2.95 overall chance of winning a prize, an expected payout of 70.00%, and odds of about 1 in 4,000,000 for the £100,000 top prize. They also state that the outcome of each play is decided by Allwyn's computer system at the point of purchase.
Prize competition sites work in a similar way. On MrRaffle:
- Each instant win game is a fixed pool of tickets with a prize list set before it opens.
- The odds of each prize tier work out as "1 in X": the number of tickets divided by the number of prizes in that tier. As a made-up example, a game of 100,000 tickets with 20 prizes of £50 gives odds of 1 in 5,000 for £50.
- Outcomes are allocated at random when each ticket is bought. Scratching only reveals the result.
- Not all tickets win, and cash prizes are a minority of wins. Other prizes include site credit, free tickets and jackpot tickets.
- Games close at a set time or when tickets run out. Unsold tickets are then retired, so a headline prize can remain unwon.
Our guide to how online scratch cards work goes through the ticket pool step by step.
Has anyone won big on a scratch card?
Yes. The National Lottery's own list is the clearest public evidence. On 24 September 2026, the 19 listed cards with top prizes of £1 million or more showed 26 of their 68 top prizes still left, which means 42 had already been claimed. Those wins are real, but each one was a roughly one-in-millions outcome.
On the four cards in our table with six- or seven-figure top prizes, between about 2 million and 9 million cards were printed for every top prize.
Are lottery scratchcards more reliable for small wins?
Small wins are frequent, which is why scratchcards can feel reliable. Roughly one card in three or four wins something. But many of those wins only return your stake, and across a whole print run the listed cards pay back between 60% and 72% of what players spend, so small wins do not add up to breaking even.
For a comparison with draw games, see our guides to the odds of winning the lottery and which UK lottery has the best odds.
How did we get these numbers?
On 24 September 2026 we took all 56 cards from the National Lottery's All Scratchcards page, with each card's "top prizes left", and downloaded the game procedures linked from every card. From each we took the price, overall odds, initial print run, prize table and prize share.
Top-prize odds are the print run divided by the number of top prizes. We checked every recalculated overall odds figure against the one printed in the procedures.
Frequently asked questions
Is it worth doing scratch cards?
Only as paid entertainment. On the National Lottery cards listed in September 2026, prizes made up between 60% and 72% of the face value of each print run, so on average players get back less than they spend. Set a budget you are happy to lose, and treat any win as a bonus.
Do scratchcard odds change as cards are sold?
Yes. The published odds describe the whole print run at launch. As cards are sold and prizes claimed, the number of prizes left in each tier falls, as the game procedures point out. Because nobody outside the operator knows how many cards remain unsold, today's exact odds on any one card cannot be worked out.
Can a scratchcard still be on sale after the top prize has gone?
Yes. Under the National Lottery's Code of Practice on Top Prize Management, new packs stop being activated within 24 or 48 hours of the last top prize being validated, depending on the prize size, but shops may keep selling cards from packs already activated. Check "top prizes left" before buying.
How many scratchcards can you buy at once?
In shops, the National Lottery limits you to 10 scratchcards in one transaction. The limit came into effect on 1 October 2024 and applies in all stores that sell National Lottery games. A transaction means a single purchase during one visit to a store.
Do you have to be 18 to buy a scratchcard?
Yes. The National Lottery's Rules for Scratchcard Games say nobody under 18 can buy a scratchcard, whether for themselves or for someone else, and no prize will be paid to them. Online prize competition sites that offer scratch cards, including MrRaffle, are also for adults aged 18 and over.
Sources
- All Scratchcards, The National Lottery, accessed 24 September 2026
- £100,000 Gold game procedures (game 1475), The National Lottery, accessed 24 September 2026
- £100 Tripler game procedures (game 1495), The National Lottery, accessed 24 September 2026
- Frosty Fortunes game procedures (game 1522), The National Lottery, accessed 24 September 2026
- £1 Million game procedures (game 1472), The National Lottery, accessed 24 September 2026
- When It's Gold Outside game procedures (game 1526), The National Lottery, accessed 24 September 2026
- Fiver Or Tenner game procedures (game 1505), The National Lottery, accessed 24 September 2026
- Code of Practice on Top Prize Management, The National Lottery, accessed 24 September 2026
- Rules for Scratchcard Games, The National Lottery, accessed 24 September 2026
- £100,000 Cash Multiplier (online Instant Win Game) and its game procedures, The National Lottery, accessed 24 September 2026
Play responsibly
MrRaffle is for UK residents aged 18 and over. Only play with money you can afford to spend, set a budget before you start, and take a break if it stops being fun.
Want to try an online scratch card with the prize list set before the game opens? Browse MrRaffle scratch cards, or claim free tickets to start without spending. New players also get a 25% deposit bonus + 10 free tickets on their first deposit (terms apply).
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