Crossword scratch-offs win more often, but pay back less

Crossword tickets are the most reliably popular format on any scratch ticket rack, and they behave differently from the other games. Across 143 active crossword games in the United States, they win noticeably more often than other tickets and hand back less money.

Better odds at every price above $2

At $20 the hit-rate advantage is large. A crossword ticket wins something on roughly one ticket in three, where the rest of the $20 rack is closer to 4, at one in 3.88. 

The money payout runs the other way. At the same $20 price the crossword games return 72.4% against 75.4%, so the more frequent wins cost about three points of payout. At $10 the same trade appears, better odds by three quarters of a point and payout lower by 2.3.

The format explains both halves

A crossword ticket pays on completed words, and a single card offers many chances to complete one. That structure necessarily spreads the prize budget across a large number of small outcomes, which is what a good hit rate is. The same structure leaves less room for the large prizes that lift a payout percentage.

It is a genuine trade rather than a trick, and which side of it suits you is a matter of what you want from the ticket. Frequent small wins keep a game interesting for longer. A higher payout percentage loses your money more slowly.

What the trade costs in cash

On $100 spent at $20 a ticket, the crossword games return about $72.40 on average and the rest of the $20 rack about $75.40. Three dollars per hundred is the price of the extra hit rate, and in exchange roughly one ticket in three wins something instead of one in 3.88.

Bingo sits close, without the hit-rate edge

The nearest format to a crossword is a bingo card, and it lands in similar territory on payout without the same advantage in frequency. Across 66 active bingo games the average payout is 67.2% with odds of 1 in 3.80, against 68.7% and 1 in 3.58 for crosswords. Both formats trade on the same appeal, which is a card that takes a while to work through.

The averages hide huge variation

Two of the ten best-rated scratch-offs in the country are crosswords. Wisconsin's $30 Mystery Prize Crossword rates 97.4 with a 74.3% payout and odds of 1 in 3.10, and Oregon's $20 One Word Crossword rates 97.0 at 72.1% with odds of 1 in 2.77.

Both sit far above the crossword average on our scoring, which is the usual reminder that a format average is a starting point rather than a recommendation. Bingo tickets, the closest cousin to crosswords, average 67.2% across 66 active games and 1 in 3.80, so they land in similar territory without the same hit-rate edge.

Current scores for every crossword game we track sit alongside everything else in the national ValueScore™ rankings.

How we did this. We compared the 143 active US scratch-offs with "crossword" in the title against all other active games at the same ticket prices, using published overall odds and prize payout percentages.