The ScratchCheck Editorial Team is a group of data analysts and lottery researchers who track scratch-off odds, prize structures, and expected value across all 50 US states, Canadian provinces, and international markets. We analyze publicly released data from official lottery authorities to help players make more informed decisions; not to encourage play, but to ensure those who do play understand the math behind the ticket.
ValueScore is a single 0-to-100 number that tells you how good a scratch-off is right now, combining four things players normally have to weigh by hand: expected value, prize quality, win frequency, and how much of the prize pool is left. Here is exactly what goes into it and how to read it...
June 15, 2026
Florida launched four new scratch-offs on May 17, 2026, at price points of $2, $3, $5, and $20. All four are entering the market with full prize pools intact. Here's what each game looks like and how they compare to the existing Florida catalog...
May 20, 2026
Georgia added four new scratch-offs to its catalog today, May 19, 2026, spanning price points from $2 to $30. All four are launching with full prize pools intact. Here's what each game looks like and which one stands out...
May 19, 2026
Scratching a ticket and not being sure if you won is more common than it sounds. Prize tables can be confusing, symbols don't always match what you expect, and some games have multiple ways to win that aren't obvious...
March 19, 2026
The way how scratch-off tickets expiration works is different from what most people assume, which is why winning tickets go unclaimed every single year...
March 18, 2026
It's one of the most common decisions in scratch-off playing and most people make it on gut feeling. You've got $20 to spend. Do you put it all on one ticket, or spread it across four $5 tickets? The answer is...
March 16, 2026
A new national lottery draw game just launched last month, and it's worth knowing about. Millionaire for Life debuted on February 22, 2026 in 31 states, replacing Lucky for Life and Cash4Life in every participating jurisdiction. If you've been playing...
March 15, 2026
The $1 rack by the register is hard to resist. It's a dollar. What's the worst that could happen? But if you look at what cheap scratch tickets actually deliver compared to their pricier counterparts, the math is pretty consistently bad...
March 14, 2026
Twenty dollars is the threshold where scratch-off tickets stop feeling like an impulse buy and start feeling like an actual decision. A $1 or $2 ticket is almost an afterthought. A $5 ticket is easy to justify. But $20 makes you pause ...
March 12, 2026
New scratch-off games are worth paying attention to for a simple reason: fresh games have full prize pools. The longer a game has been on shelves, the more top prizes have already been claimed. If you're chasing a big win, a game that launched last week is almost always a better...
March 12, 2026
Every month we pull fresh data from official state lottery sources to flag the tickets actually worth your attention right now. Not games that looked good six months ago. Not generic advice. Just what's showing up at the top of the rankings today, filtered for games that...
March 11, 2026
Not all scratch-off tickets are created equal, and not all states are either. The odds printed on the back of your ticket depend entirely on how each state lottery designs its games, and the differences between...
March 10, 2026