Quick answers to the most-asked questions about New York scratch-off lottery tickets — odds, taxes, expiration, claiming winners, and strategy.
The overall odds printed on each ticket are the total number of printed tickets divided by the total number of prizes. For example, "1 in 3.64" means that when the game launched, roughly one in every 3.64 tickets was a winner at any prize level. Remaining odds today are lower once prizes have been claimed; our site tracks both the printed odds and the live remaining odds.
Yes. In New York State, scratch-off tickets expire one year after the game’s official end date announced by the NY Lottery. You can check the exact expiration date on the back of the ticket or on our game status page.
NY State withholds 10.9% state tax and 24% federal tax on scratch-off prizes over $5,000. NYC residents also face 3.876% city tax. Below $5,000, no automatic withholding occurs, but you still must report wins on federal and NY state income tax returns.
Prizes up to $600 can be cashed at any NY Lottery retailer. Prizes from $601–$5,000 can be claimed at a retailer with a Lottery Customer Service Center or by mail. Prizes over $5,000 must be claimed at a NY Lottery Customer Service Center in person. See our full cashing guide.
No. Every NY scratch-off is audited by the NY State Gaming Commission. Each game has a fixed, predetermined pool of tickets and prizes printed before the game launches. The randomness is in which physical ticket you buy, not in whether the game is "rigged." Our in-depth analysis covers the audit process.
Smart Score is our proprietary 0–100 metric that ranks each game with 33 calibrated factors, including expected value, remaining top-prize density, payout rate, freshness, momentum, and event signals. A score above 70 indicates a game currently offering unusually strong mathematical value. See the full methodology.
The best-odds game changes daily as prizes are claimed. See our live rankings page for today’s top picks ranked by Smart Score.
They generally have better payout rates, not better overall odds. A $30 NY ticket averages ~73% payout vs. ~63% on a $1 ticket, but the printed odds of winning any prize are often similar. Higher price points offer larger top prizes, not necessarily higher win frequency. See our detailed breakdown.
ScratchOffsNY publishes live overall and remaining odds for every active New York Lottery scratch-off at /scratch-off-odds-ny, recomputed daily from official prize-claim data. The official source for published overall odds is nylottery.ny.gov. The NY Lottery mobile app also shows the printed odds for each game.
This changes daily as prizes are claimed. See our live rankings page sorted by Smart Score, which factors top-prize density into its ranking, or the today’s odds page for a snapshot of the strongest games right now.
All three sites analyze NY scratch-off odds, but ScratchOffsNY is the only one that is fully free, has no paywall, publishes its methodology openly, and releases its source code under an open-source license on GitHub. Our Smart Score combines 33 weighted signals recalibrated daily; rankings refresh through scheduled checks using official prize-claim data.
No. ScratchOffsNY is an independent, non-commercial data-science project. We use publicly published data from the official NY Lottery (nylottery.ny.gov) and NY Open Data (data.ny.gov) feeds, but we have no affiliation with the New York State Gaming Commission or the NY Lottery.
Data sourced from nylottery.ny.gov and NY Open Data. Independent, non-commercial project. Play responsibly — NY Problem Gambling · 1-877-8-HOPENY.