Lottery ticket types

The big draw games

Powerball and Mega Millions are the two games sold across most of the country. Powerball says it is sold by all 48 U.S. lotteries, plus Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands; Mega Millions is offered in 47 jurisdictions. A Powerball play costs $2, and a Mega Millions play has cost $5 since the April 8, 2025 drawing, with a multiplier built in.

These are long-shot bets. Most of the money goes to a jackpot that almost nobody hits, and the jackpot rolls until somebody does, which is why it gets so big. The odds are fixed by the size of the barrels and the jackpot changes every draw, so the bet gets better as the jackpot climbs (it never gets good; the odds page has the sum). Each game has its own page: Powerball and Mega Millions.

Many states also run their own lotto games on the same pattern, pick some numbers and hope, with smaller jackpots and shorter odds. The names, prices and rules are set state by state, so I won't quote them here. Your state lottery's site lists them, with the odds.

Daily numbers

Pick 3 and Pick 4 style games are a different animal. You choose a three or four digit number, and a draw, often daily or twice daily, picks one. The math is simple: a three-digit number is one of 1,000 (000 to 999), so a straight bet on the exact order is 1 in 1,000. A four-digit number is 1 in 10,000.

These are the closest thing the lottery sells to the old street numbers game. The prizes are fixed, the odds are short by lottery standards and you can play combinations ("box" bets that win in any order) for different prices. Payouts vary by state, so read the prize table before you play and set what a straight bet pays against the 1 in 1,000. A fair price would hand back $1,000 for every $1 staked; whatever the table pays short of that is the house's cut, and I'd want to know it before I played.

Scratch-offs

A scratch-off is not a draw. The lottery prints a run of tickets with a fixed set of prizes in it, ships them out, and you find out at the counter. Prices run from a dollar to far more; the Texas Lottery, for one, sells scratch tickets from $1 up to $100.

Because the prizes are printed in advance, some lotteries tell you how many are left. When we checked the Texas page for its $20 Million Dollar Loteria game on 27 October 2026, it listed 10 top prizes of $1,000,000 printed and 9 claimed, with overall odds of winning any prize of 1 in 3.29. That is information I'd want. A game whose top prizes are all gone can still be on sale, and you are then buying a ticket that cannot pay the prize on its front.

The overall odds on a scratch-off look good next to a draw game, and they are mostly small prizes, often the price of the ticket back. A "win" that returns your $20 is a push, and players who count it as a win tend to buy another ticket with it. I'd treat a scratch-off as the quickest way the lottery has of taking money, because it is: no waiting for a draw, so the next ticket is right there.

Add-ons

Most of the add-ons are bought on the same slip as a draw game.

• Power Play on Powerball multiplies non-jackpot prizes, for an extra $1 per play.
• Double Play puts your Powerball numbers into a second draw with a top prize of $10 million, also $1 extra, in the 30 lotteries that offer it.
• The Mega Millions multiplier is no longer an add-on. It comes with every $5 play and is assigned at random when you buy.

What each multiplier is worth is worked out on the multipliers page. In short, an add-on is a second bet, priced on its own, and I'd judge it on its own price.

Quick pick or your own numbers

You can choose your numbers or let the terminal pick them. The chance of winning is identical. The difference is what happens if you do win: numbers people like to choose, birthdays especially, get chosen by a lot of people, and a shared jackpot is a smaller one. That's why I'd take the quick pick.

Where and how you can buy

This is where your state matters most. Some states sell draw-game tickets online through the state lottery, some don't, and some let you buy several draws ahead on one ticket or by subscription. Age limits are set by each state as well. I'm not going to tell you what's allowed where you live; your state lottery's site does, and the lottery and its licensed retailers are the only places I'd buy from. A ticket sold to you by anyone else, by message or by a stranger, is the start of one of the lottery scams.

Whatever you buy, decide the amount before you reach the counter. The responsible gambling page has the help lines if that amount stops holding.