Competition odds calculator
Work out your chance of winning any capped prize competition, ours or anyone else's. No sign-up, nothing to buy.
Your chance of winning a capped prize competition is the number of tickets you hold divided by the total number of tickets in the draw. The ticket cap tells you the worst case before you enter: if every ticket sells, your odds are 1 in (cap ÷ your tickets), so 250 tickets in a 40,000-ticket draw give you 1 in 160, or 0.625%. If fewer tickets sell, your chance is better. A free postal entry counts as a ticket, with exactly the same odds as a paid one.
Work out your chance
Choose one of our competitions or type in any draw's numbers. Nothing is charged here: it only does the maths.
- As a percentage
- 0.625%
- Chance of not winning
- 99.375%
- Cost of 250 tickets
- £27.50
With 250 tickets in a draw of 40,000, your chance is 1 in 160 (0.625%) if every ticket sells.
This is your chance if every ticket sells. If fewer sell, your chance is better. No number of tickets guarantees a win.
A free postal entry has exactly the same chance as a paid ticket. How free entry works
Same draw, different numbers of tickets
| Tickets | Chance | As a % | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | 1 in 1,600 | 0.0625% | £2.75 |
| 100 | 1 in 400 | 0.25% | £11.00 |
| 250 | 1 in 160 | 0.625% | £27.50 |
| 500 | 1 in 80 | 1.25% | £55.00 |
| 1,000 | 1 in 40 | 2.5% | £110.00 |
How the maths works
Your chance of winning is the tickets you hold divided by the tickets in the draw. To say it as "1 in N", divide the other way: tickets in the draw ÷ your tickets. Here it is for our £1,000 draw, capped at 40,000 tickets with one winner, where tickets are sold in minimum orders of 25:
- 25 tickets, the smallest order: 25 ÷ 40,000, which is 1 in 1,600, or 0.0625%.
- 250 tickets: 250 ÷ 40,000, which is 1 in 160, or 0.625%.
- Your chance of not winning is the rest: with 250 tickets, 39,750 in 40,000, or 99.375%.
- If the draw closes with only 25,000 tickets sold, the same 250 tickets are 250 ÷ 25,000: 1 in 100, or 1%.
The calculator shows the sell-out figure because it is the one you can know before you enter, and it is the worst your chance can be. For the longer version, read our guide, competition odds, explained honestly.
Why ticket caps matter
A ticket cap is the most tickets that can ever be in a draw, and it is published before you enter. That turns your worst-case odds into a fact you can check rather than a guess.
Without a cap, a draw can keep selling after you have entered, and every ticket sold after yours makes your chance smaller. You cannot know your odds until it closes.
Every Grand Draws competition publishes its cap and a limit on how many tickets one person can hold, across paid and postal entries combined. Every draw goes ahead on its closing date, sold out or not: there is no minimum number of entries and no rollover. So the sell-out figure really is the worst case, and a draw that does not sell out leaves you with better odds.
The draw runs automatically at 9pm on the closing date. The result is published, and anyone can recompute the winning ticket for themselves.
Does buying more tickets improve your odds?
Yes, in proportion. In a single-winner draw, 250 tickets give you exactly 10 times the chance of the 25-ticket minimum order, and doubling your tickets doubles your chance.
It never guarantees a win, though, and the chance you add stays small next to the chance of not winning. With 1,250 tickets in a 40,000-ticket draw, your chance of not winning is still 38,750 in 40,000, or 96.875%, if it sells out. Every extra ticket costs the same as the first.
So decide what you are comfortable spending before you look at the numbers, and treat it as the cost of taking part, not as an investment. If you would rather not pay at all, a free postal entry has the same chance as a paid ticket. Our responsible play page has practical ways to set a limit, and where to find support. You must be 18 or over to enter.
Odds with more than one winner
Some draws have more than one winner. Winners are drawn without replacement: once a ticket is picked it cannot be picked again, so every winner is a different ticket.
Your chance of at least one win is 1 minus the chance that none of your tickets is picked:
chance = 1 - C(T - k, w) / C(T, w)
where T is the tickets in the draw, k is your tickets, w is the number of winners, and C(n, r) counts the ways to choose r tickets from n.
A quick estimate is your tickets × winners ÷ tickets in the draw. The exact figure is never higher than that, because two winners can never share a ticket. With 250 tickets in a 40,000-ticket draw with 3 winners, the estimate gives 1 in 53.3 and the exact chance is about 1 in 54 (1.86%). Set the number of winners in the calculator and it does the exact sum for you.
Odds on our competitions
Each competition publishes its ticket cap, so here is the chance the smallest order of 25 tickets gives you if the draw sells out.
| Competition | Tickets in the draw | 25 tickets |
|---|---|---|
| £100 jackpot, and 207 more prizes 11p a ticket, minimum order 25 | 10,000 up to 2,500 each | 1 in 400 |
| £250 Tax-Free Cash 9p a ticket, minimum order 25 | 20,000 up to 1,250 each | 1 in 800 |
| £500 Tax-Free Cash 9p a ticket, minimum order 25 | 27,000 up to 1,250 each | 1 in 1,080 |
| £1,000 Tax-Free Cash 11p a ticket, minimum order 25 | 40,000 up to 2,500 each | 1 in 1,600 |
| £2,500 Tax-Free Cash 14p a ticket, minimum order 25 | 80,000 up to 2,500 each | 1 in 3,200 |
| £5,000 Tax-Free Cash 18p a ticket, minimum order 25 | 133,750 up to 2,500 each | 1 in 5,350 |
| £10,000 Tax-Free Cash 23p a ticket, minimum order 25 | 200,000 up to 2,500 each | 1 in 8,000 |
Every competition also has a free postal route on the same odds. See all competitions
Odds questions, answered
How do you work out the odds in a prize competition?
What if the competition does not publish a ticket cap?
Do my odds improve if a competition does not sell out?
Does a free postal entry have the same odds as a paid ticket?
Can buying more tickets guarantee a win?
How do odds work when there is more than one winner?
Check the odds before you enter
Every competition publishes its ticket cap and has a free postal route on the same odds. 18+, Great Britain.
Your ticket could be next
Every competition has published odds, a draw anyone can verify and a free postal route. 18+.