The best $20 scratch-off in every state right now
Forty-four lotteries, including D.C., sell $20 scratch-offs, 354 games in all, and the typical one returns about 75.1% of sales as prizes. Here is the top-rated $20 game in each, by our ValueScore™, as of October 14, 2026. We did the same for $5 tickets and $10 tickets.
South Carolina's Magnificent Jumbo Bucks leads the country at 99.4, with all seven of its $2.5 million top prizes still out there. New Jersey's $1 Million Premier Ca$h and Minnesota's brand-new Mystery Prize Crossword follow at 97.9 and 97.4. Most of the top picks share one trait. They are recent launches with all or nearly all of their top prizes left, which is what the score rewards.
At the bottom, Montana's best $20 game rates 39.7 and Vermont's 43.1, so even the top choice there is a weak one. Payout and rating don't always agree. Massachusetts' $2,000,000 Stacked returns 85.6% but rates 84.7 because 4 of its 14 top prizes are gone, while Minnesota's pick returns 72.5% and rates 97.4 with every prize intact. Kansas, Maine, Missouri, Tennessee, and Vermont don't publish enough prize data to compute a payout, so those rows show n/a.
How we did this. For each state, we picked the active $20 scratch-off with the highest ValueScore™ in our database on October 14, 2026, using payout as the tiebreaker. ValueScore™ is calculated within each state and updates daily, so a game's rank can change as prizes are claimed. Payout is the share of sales a game returns as prizes over its print run. Louisiana, Indiana, and D.C. payouts count free-ticket prizes as zero.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best $20 scratch-off right now?
South Carolina's Magnificent Jumbo Bucks, which rates 99.4 on our ValueScore with all seven of its $2.5 million top prizes left, as of October 14, 2026. New Jersey's $1 Million Premier Ca$h is second at 97.9.
How many $20 scratch-offs are on sale in the US?
354 across 44 state lotteries, including Washington, D.C., as of October 14, 2026. The typical $20 game returns about 75.1% of sales as prizes, more than cheaper tickets.
Why are the best scratch-offs usually new?
A new game still has all of its top prizes. As tickets sell and big prizes are claimed, the value left in the remaining tickets usually falls, so games with most of their prizes intact rate highest.
Phil Nageotte is a writer covering scratch-off odds, expected value, prize data, and more. He joined ScratchCheck in 2026 after years of tracking lottery payouts in spreadsheets of his own.
