Most scratch-offs print just a handful of top prizes
The typical scratch-off on sale today was printed with four top prizes. Across 2,572 state lottery games with a top-prize count in our data as of October 7, 2026, the median is four, and about 64% have five or fewer. Once a game's few top prizes are claimed, the ticket keeps selling with nothing left at the top, and the odds of landing one are already long.
| Top prizes printed | Games | Average payout |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7 | 68.9% |
| 2 to 3 | 1,003 | 70.8% |
| 4 to 5 | 632 | 70.2% |
| 6 to 10 | 417 | 69.2% |
| 11 to 25 | 153 | 67.2% |
| 26 to 100 | 90 | 68.8% |
| More than 100 | 270 | 70.6% |
Two or three top prizes printed is the most common setup, with just over 1,000 games. Payout barely changes from one group to the next, so a game with few top prizes isn't stingier overall. It just puts less of its money at the very top.
The more a ticket costs, the more likely it is to have five or fewer top prizes. At $1, only 34% of games are built that way, because many $1 tickets top out at a few thousand dollars and print dozens of those. At $5 the share is 71%, at $20 it is 73%, and at $30 it is 79%. Games with a top prize of $1 million or more are the thinnest of all. Of 539 such games, the median has three top prizes and 85% have five or fewer.
States differ too. California's games have a median of 15 top prizes and Pennsylvania's 10, while Rhode Island, Idaho, Mississippi, Oregon, and D.C. sit at two. Only seven games on sale were printed with a single top prize. Six are in Rhode Island, and the seventh is Commanders First Down Doubler, a $2 D.C. ticket with one $10,000 prize.
At the other end are games that list hundreds of thousands of "top" prizes because the top is small. Georgia's $10 Win Either $50 or $100 lists more than 1.1 million prizes of $100. For games like that, the count tells you little. For a game advertising $1 million or more, it tells you how few chances there are, and how the rest of the prize pool is spread decides most of what players actually win.
How we did this. We counted the prizes in the highest cash tier of each active state lottery scratch-off in our database on October 7, 2026, skipping free-ticket tiers, for 2,572 games with a usable count. Payout is the game's total prizes as a share of total sales. Some lotteries list prizes remaining rather than prizes printed, which can make a game's count look smaller late in its run.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many top prizes does a scratch-off usually have?
Four, at the median, across 2,572 state lottery games on sale in our data as of October 7, 2026. About 64% have five or fewer, and games with a top prize of $1 million or more have a median of three.
Do any scratch-offs have only one top prize?
Yes, but very few. Seven games on sale were printed with a single top prize, six of them in Rhode Island and one in Washington, D.C. Once that prize is claimed, nothing at the top is left to win.
Why do some scratch-offs list hundreds of thousands of top prizes?
Those games cap out at a small amount, often $100 or $200, and pay only a few prize sizes. A Georgia $10 game that pays $50 or $100 lists more than 1.1 million prizes of $100.
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.
