Scratch-offs with $1 million top prizes actually pay back more on average
It sounds reasonable that a scratch-off advertising a $1 million top prize would have to make up for it somewhere else, with less money left for the smaller prizes most players actually win. The data does not show that. Figures are from our database as of September 9, 2026, and cover active U.S. scratch-off games.
When the games are split by ticket price and whether the top prize is at least $1 million, the opposite pattern shows up.
| Price and top prize | Games | Average payout | Average odds |
|---|---|---|---|
| $10, top prize under $1M | 394 | 72.1% | 1 in 4.07 |
| $10, top prize $1M or more | 120 | 76.7% | 1 in 3.64 |
| $20, top prize under $1M | 144 | 73.3% | 1 in 4.17 |
| $20, top prize $1M or more | 158 | 76.7% | 1 in 3.39 |
Both measures move together. At $10 the big-prize games pay 4.6 points more and hit on one ticket in 3.64 instead of one in 4.07. At $20 they pay 3.4 points more and hit at 1 in 3.39 against 1 in 4.17. A player choosing between two $20 tickets on the same shelf, one with a $1 million prize and one topping out at $100,000, is on average getting the better of both numbers from the first.
The same pattern from $5 up to $50
Within each ticket price, games with larger top prizes also tended to have higher payout percentages. We compared games only against others at the same price, so the result is not being driven by more expensive tickets.
| Price | Games | Correlation between top prize size and payout |
|---|---|---|
| $5 | 643 | +0.41 |
| $10 | 514 | +0.49 |
| $20 | 302 | +0.38 |
| $30 | 129 | +0.30 |
| $50 | 71 | +0.26 |
These are moderate correlations, not tight ones, so top prize size is one influence among several and never a rule. What matters is the sign. If the squeeze theory were right the numbers would be negative, and none of them are.
What is probably going on
A large top prize normally means a large print run. A game with two $1 million prizes has to sell millions of tickets to fund them, and a run that size gives a lottery room to build a deeper table at every level. Small-run games have to be thriftier further down.
These are also the games a state pushes hardest, and payout is part of how a ticket competes for shelf space. None of that is stated anywhere in a prize table, so treat it as the likely mechanism and not a proven one. The measured part is the direction.
One thing the finding does not do is make a big-prize ticket a good bet on its own. The top prize itself remains sometimes an annuity rather than cash and the shape of the prize pool still decides what a typical win looks like. It means the reason people give for avoiding those games does not hold up.
How we did this. Top prizes, prices, overall odds, and payout percentages are from each state lottery's published game data, covering active US games with a payout figure. Correlations are Pearson coefficients between the top prize amount and the payout percentage, calculated separately within each price point so that price cannot drive the relationship. Figures are from our database as of September 9, 2026, and cover active US scratch-off games.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do scratch-offs with big top prizes have worse payouts?
No, the opposite. Among $10 games, the ones with a top prize of $1 million or more pay back 76.7% of sales on average, against 72.1% for $10 games with a smaller top prize. At $20 it is 76.7% against 73.3%. Within every price point we tested, higher top prizes go with higher payout percentages, not lower ones.
Does a big jackpot mean fewer small prizes?
Not on the evidence. Games with a $1 million-plus top prize also win more often. At $10 they hit on one ticket in 3.64 against one in 4.07 for the smaller-prize games, and at $20 it is 3.39 against 4.17. Both the payout and the hit rate move in the same direction as the top prize.
Why do big-prize scratch-offs pay more?
A large top prize is usually a sign of a large print run, and a large run lets a lottery fund a deeper prize table at every level. The games are also the ones a state promotes hardest, and a competitive payout is part of that. The point is only that the tradeoff most players assume is not visible in the data.
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.
