Lottery expected value calculator

Set the draw up and the calculator shows what the ticket actually costs. That figure is the size of the average loss, not a way to avoid it.

Almost every lottery draw has negative expected value. This tool shows the size of the loss, not a way to avoid it.

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For US games this is the 30-year annuity — the number on the billboard.
What is actually paid in one lump sum. Published per draw; defaults to 46 % of the advertised figure. EuroMillions pays cash in full.
Needed to estimate the chance of sharing the jackpot. Leave blank and splitting is not modelled.
A simplification, not tax advice: one rate and one threshold. State and regional taxes are out of scope.
What the ticket really costs — The average loss per ticket: price minus the expected payout. That is the price of entering this draw.
Return per unit staked — How much comes back on average from what you pay — the same idea as a slot’s RTP.
Chance of any prize — Including prizes smaller than the ticket price.
Break-even jackpot — — The threshold is a mirage that recedes as you approach it: at that jackpot size sales surge, and the higher chance of splitting eats the edge.

Prize tiers in full

Match Odds Prize Contribution to EV
Tiers combined —

No hot or cold numbers, no systems, no wheeling — not here and not later: balls do not remember past draws, and picking numbers never changes the expected value, only who you split a prize with.

Every tier’s odds are recomputed from the hypergeometric formula and cross-checked against the official charts on 2026-10-26; the share of a won jackpot comes from a Poisson model. Gate: scripts/verify-lottery-data.mjs.

Lottery formats: what you are actually buying →