South Dakota Budget & Goal Optimizer
Set your budget and pick a goal. Every active South Dakota scratch-off gets re-ranked for Breakeven, Jackpot Chase, or Best EV.
Budget & Goal Optimizer
With $100, $50, $150, $250 gives you 1.4× better breakeven than the average $10 South Dakota game.
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1$50, $150, $250$101 in 9.56$250Breakeven33.6%2$600,000 Cash Spectacular$301 in 3.29$600KBreakeven29.0%3Win Win Win$201 in 3.92$1KBreakeven28.5%4Platinum Payout$201 in 3.54$200KBreakeven28.2%5100X Extreme Cash$201 in 3.56$300KBreakeven27.4%6Big Money$201 in 3.41$200KBreakeven26.1%7100X The Cash$201 in 3.65$300KBreakeven24.7%8Game of Thrones™$101 in 3.98$50KBreakeven24.6%9$50,000 Mad Money$101 in 3.81$50KBreakeven24.5%10Money Maker$301 in 3.45$350KBreakeven24.1%11Jurassic Park$101 in 3.98$50KBreakeven24.0%12Instant Jackpot$101 in 3.77$80KBreakeven23.7%1350X Extreme Cash$101 in 3.98$100KBreakeven23.6%14$200,000 Winning 7s$201 in 3.36$200KBreakeven23.1%1550X The Cash$101 in 3.98$100KBreakeven22.9%
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the Budget & Goal Optimizer do?
The optimizer re-ranks every active South Dakota scratch-off against a budget you set and a goal you pick. Games that cost more than your budget drop out. Remaining games are sorted by Breakeven (per-ticket probability of winning back at least the ticket cost), Jackpot Chase (expected top-prize dollars per $1 spent), or Best EV (published expected value per $1). Rankings update live as you move the slider.
How is the Breakeven probability calculated?
For each game we sum the per-ticket odds of every prize tier that pays at least the ticket price. When tier odds are published we use 1 ÷ oddsOfWinning summed across qualifying tiers. When odds are missing we fall back to qualifying prize counts divided by estimated total tickets (prizes × overall odds). The result is then scaled to your full budget using 1 - (1 - p)^n, where n is the number of tickets you can buy at that price, capped at 99%.
How does Jackpot Chase rank games?
Jackpot Chase sorts by expected top-prize dollars per $1 spent: (topPrize × P(topPrize)) ÷ ticketPrice. P(topPrize) uses remaining top prizes over remaining tickets when both are available; otherwise it falls back to total top prizes over total tickets. Games without any ticket-count data sort last. This rewards games where the top prize is large *relative* to ticket price and still realistically claimable.
What does Best EV mean?
EV is the published expected value of a ticket: the average dollar return per $1 spent across every prize tier. It is almost always less than $1 (state lotteries keep a cut), but higher-EV games return more of your money on average. Best EV ranks games by expected value per dollar. EV is the most rigorous single metric when full prize-tier data is published.
Why do some games show "~Est." or an "Estimated" badge?
South Dakota publishes full prize data, so most values are official. A few games may still carry estimated odds when the state temporarily omits a tier; those are marked "~Est." on the odds figure.
Does my budget or goal get saved?
Yes. Your budget and goal are stored locally in your browser (no account, no login) so the next time you visit an optimizer page in South Dakota or anywhere on ScratchCheck, your selections come back. Clear your site data or click Reset to restore the defaults ($100, Breakeven).