More scratch-offs to choose from usually means worse choices
Walking into a store in Georgia you can choose from 204 different scratch-offs. In Minnesota you get 39. More choice sounds better, and by the numbers it is not. Figures are as of October 24, 2026, and cover active US scratch-off games.
Across the 35 US states with at least 15 games on sale, the number of games a state carries and the average score of those games correlate at -0.56. The bigger the shelf, the weaker the typical ticket on it.
| State | Games on sale | Average age | Average percent sold | Average payout | Average ValueScore™ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Georgia | 204 | 1,184 days | 81.1% | 74.3% | 38.3 |
| New York | 107 | 547 days | 70.1% | 66.7% | 42.2 |
| Michigan | 107 | 473 days | 48.7% | 72.6% | 54.0 |
| Massachusetts | 98 | 493 days | 59.7% | 76.9% | 48.1 |
| New Hampshire | 86 | 490 days | 60.8% | 67.4% | 39.8 |
| Texas | 76 | 224 days | 51.6% | 70.2% | 51.1 |
| Oklahoma | 50 | 265 days | 46.8% | 68.2% | 53.0 |
| West Virginia | 41 | 213 days | 45.6% | 69.1% | 54.3 |
| Minnesota | 39 | 218 days | 55.2% | 68.2% | 57.8 |
Georgia is the clearest case. Its payout is strong at 74.3%, better than Texas or Oklahoma, and its average score is the lowest of any large state. The games average more than three years old and are 81.1% sold. Whatever those tickets were worth at launch has largely been claimed.
The mechanism shows up in the correlations. Shelf size and average game age move together at +0.89, close to lockstep. Age and score run at -0.48. And percent sold against score runs at -0.74, the strongest of the three links to score.
| Relationship across 35 states | Correlation |
|---|---|
| More games on sale, older games | +0.89 |
| More sold through, lower score | -0.74 |
| More games on sale, lower score | -0.56 |
| Older games, lower score | -0.48 |
Read in order, that is a single story. States do not accumulate games by adding good ones. They accumulate games by not removing finished ones. A shelf grows because old tickets stay on it, and old tickets are mostly sold through, and a sold-through game has little left in it whatever its payout says.
The states at the other end are not doing anything clever with prize structures. West Virginia, Minnesota, and Oklahoma have payouts in the ordinary 68% to 69% range. What they have is a shelf averaging about 210 to 265 days old and roughly half sold.
In a state with a large shelf the good games are still there, they are just outnumbered. Georgia has strong new tickets on sale alongside games from 2013, and the average is dragged down by the back stock, not by anything about the new ones.
So the practical version reverses the intuition. On a wall of 204 games, most of the choices are finished, so the ranking matters more there than in a state with forty. Current national rankings and the per-state pages sort it either way.
How we did this. Game counts, launch dates, percent sold, payout percentages, and scores are from each state lottery's published game data, covering active US games. Correlations are Pearson coefficients across the 35 states with at least 15 active games and complete figures, using each state's averages as one observation. Average age is days since launch for games with a recorded launch date. ValueScore™ is our 0 to 100 rating and updates daily. Figures are as of October 24, 2026, and cover active US scratch-off games.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do states with more scratch-off games offer better choices?
No. Across the 35 US states with at least 15 games on sale, shelf size and average game score correlate at -0.56. The states carrying the most games tend to carry the weakest ones, because a large shelf is mostly an old shelf.
Which state has the most scratch-off games?
Georgia, with 204 active games, more than any other state and nearly twice as many as New York and Michigan at 107 each. Georgia’s games average 1,184 days old and 81.1% sold, and its average score of 38.3 is among the lowest in the country despite a healthy 74.3% average payout.
Is a small scratch-off shelf better for players?
On average yes, though not because small is better in itself. A state that retires games quickly keeps mostly fresh games in front of you, with prize pools largely intact. West Virginia at 41 games and Minnesota at 39 average 54.3 and 57.8, roughly 40% to 50% higher than Georgia.
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.
