Texas launched 4 new scratch-off tickets for August 2026

The Texas Lottery put four new scratch-offs on sale August 17, 2026, and two of them are rival NFL tickets that launched on the same day at the same price. ValueScore™ figures, our 0 to 100 rating, are current as of this writing on August 18, 2026.

Million Dollar Loteria ($20)

Million Dollar Loteria is the pick of the launch and one of the strongest tickets in the state. It rates 90.6, which puts it second among the 78 active Texas games we score, behind only the $100 Premier Winnings at 95.1. It returns 75% of sales as prizes, its overall odds are 1 in 3.29, and all ten $1 million top prizes are unclaimed.

The score breaks into four parts and this ticket gives up ground on one. Expected value contributes 31.7 points of a possible 50, win frequency 19.0 of 20, prize quality 25.0 of 25, and inventory freshness the full 15. Everything except the raw return is close to maxed out, which is what a brand-new $20 game with its entire top tier intact looks like.

Houston Texans ($5)

Houston Texans rates 58.4 with a 64.6% payout percentage and odds of 1 in 3.77. The top prize is $100,000 and four remain. Among the nineteen $5 games Texas has on sale, it is the third best we score.

Cowboys ($5)

Cowboys rates 53.5, and this is where the launch gets interesting. The two football tickets cost the same $5, carry the same $100,000 top prize, and have the same four top prizes outstanding, yet the Cowboys ticket returns 60.2% of sales against 64.6% for Houston. On a $5 ticket that gap is about 22 cents of expected return, and it is the whole difference between the two. Fans will buy the ticket with their team on it, which the lottery knows, so the pricing of the two is worth a look before you pick.

The gap between the two games shows up starkly in the expected-value component of the score, where Cowboys collects 1.6 points out of 50 and Houston collects 5.7. Both are low scores, and for anyone buying either one: neither football ticket is a good $5 play by the numbers. Texas has nineteen $5 games on sale, and Super Loteria at 62.8 and Super Crossword at 62.7 both beat the two of them, each returning about 68% of sales.

Break the Bank ($2)

Break the Bank rates 50.4, the weakest of the four. It pays back 65% of sales, which is better than either football ticket, but its overall odds of 1 in 4.80 are the longest in the group and the top prize is $30,000 with ten left. Hit rate is most of what separates it from the rest.

Break the Bank collects 2.1 points out of 20 on win frequency, the lowest of the four by a distance, and that single number is most of why a game with a respectable payout still lands last. Money coming back in fewer, larger chunks feels worse to play even when the percentage looks fine.

All four are effectively untouched, with sell-through between 0% and 0.1% as of this writing, so every top prize in the group is still out there. That is the one genuine advantage of buying at launch, and it fades as the run sells down. We wrote about how much that actually matters in do newer scratch-off games have better odds.

The order here follows the usual price pattern, where the $20 ticket returns 75 cents on the dollar and the $2 ticket makes you wait longer between wins. Current scores for every Texas game are on our Texas ValueScore™ rankings, and the full board is on the Texas state page.

Sources

Texas Lottery: scratch ticket games and prize data