The card
Prize table (edit any line)
| Prize | Odds: 1 in | Share of the return |
|---|
Scratch it
Match three amounts to win that amount. Tap the squares, or reveal the lot.
Your session
Every card is drawn at random with the odds in the table, the way a big print run averages out. A real batch of cards is printed in advance, so the top prizes may already be gone from the ones on sale. Nothing here costs or pays real money.
Independent site. CasinoCalcs is not affiliated with or endorsed by the National Lottery, Allwyn or any scratchcard operator. Game names are used only to describe the rules the maths is based on.
- Maths reviewed by Josh Miller
- Tested by Diana Westfield
Buy a thousand £2 scratch cards in the simulator above and you’ll typically get about £1,120 of the £2,000 back. You’ll also have “won” around 270 times, mostly £2 and £4, which is exactly why it doesn’t feel like losing while it’s happening. The CasinoCalcs scratch card simulator lets you scratch one card square by square, or buy 10, 100, 1,000 or 10,000 in one go and see where the money went. Free, and nothing real is spent.
Scratch card simulator: what to try
- Scratch ten by hand. Notice how often a £2 or £4 win turns up. Then check the session panel.
- Buy 10,000. The “Paid back” figure settles close to the card’s real return. Short sessions bounce around; long ones don’t.
- Look at the top prize line. On the example £2 card it’s 1 in 1.5 million. You’d need to buy about a million cards for an even chance of seeing it.
Each card is drawn with the odds in the prize table, so the long-run maths matches the table exactly. The odds shown on a real card are worked out over the whole print run, so a particular book on the shop counter can be better or worse than average. The top prizes may already have been won before you buy.
The example cards
| Card | Any prize | Paid back | Average loss per card |
|---|---|---|---|
| £1 | 1 in 3.54 | 58.2% | 42p |
| £2 | 1 in 3.75 | 56.0% | 88p |
| £5 | 1 in 3.18 | 56.7% | £2.17 |
| £10 | 1 in 3.08 | 58.6% | £4.14 |
These are example tables, built to look like real ones. To simulate your own card, choose “My own card” and type the prizes and “1 in” odds from the back of it or from the game’s rules. The scratch card odds calculator works out the same return and odds without the simulation.
Why the session panel matters
A scratch card is the fastest lottery there is. Ten cards take a couple of minutes, and the wins that come back are often spent on more cards straight away. Over a session that “recycling” means you end up losing a much bigger share of your money than the paid-back figure suggests. If you’d like to see that in a year of play, the gambling spend calculator adds it up.
The simulator is the cheapest scratch card you’ll ever buy. BeGambleAware.org is free and confidential if playing stops being fun.