Is a $10 or a $20 scratch-off the better buy?

In 36 of the 39 US lotteries that sell both $10 and $20 games, the average $20 scratch-off pays back more than the average $10. Nationally the gap is about two points. The median $20 game returns 74.9% of sales as prizes, and the median $10 game returns 72.9%.

In dollars, $100 spent on $10 tickets comes back as about $72.90 in prizes on average, and $100 on $20 tickets as about $74.90. That $2 is the whole edge of the more expensive games, set against an average loss of $25 to $27 whichever price you pick. A losing $10 ticket also costs half as much, so a player who wants the same money to last through more scratching gets twice as many tickets.

Where the $10 holds up

The bigger prizes are more mixed. Across all the tickets printed for these games, $100 of $20 tickets has slightly better odds at a prize of $1,000 or more, and at $1 million or more. In between, the $10 comes out ahead.

At $100,000 and up the $10 player's odds are nearly twice as good for the same money. Ten tickets instead of five means ten shots at the five- and six-figure prizes, and $10 games carry plenty of them. The $20 pulls back ahead only at the very top, where more than half of $20 games offer $1 million or more against about a fifth of $10 games.

The state matters more than the price

The gap between the two prices swings widely from state to state.

In Louisiana, New Mexico, and Texas the step up to $20 buys a real improvement. In New Hampshire, Nebraska, and Montana it buys a slightly worse average ticket. Massachusetts is in a league of its own. Its $10 games average 83.4%, more than the average $20 game pays in any other state.

Averages hide a lot inside each state, and our ValueScore™ rankings compare individual games, including how many big prizes are still left in each. The same trade at other prices is covered in twenty $1 tickets vs. one $20 and one $20 vs. four $5s, and the full ladder from $1 to $50 is in payout by price point.

How we did this. Figures cover all active $10 and $20 scratch-offs from US state lotteries in our data on September 27, 2026, with a published payout between 40% and 95%. Payout, overall odds, and top prizes are each lottery's own figures. The big-prize odds use the 438 $10 games and 246 $20 games whose full prize tables reconcile with the published payout, count every ticket printed in those games, and give the chance that at least one of 10 or 5 tickets wins a prize of that size. State averages are simple means across each state's games at each price, for the 38 states and Washington, D.C., that sell both.