Competition odds, explained honestly
In a capped prize competition, your odds are the number of tickets you hold divided by the total number that can be sold. Hold 10 out of 5,000 and your chance is 10 in 5,000, which is 1 in 500. Because the total is published upfront, you can work out your exact worst-case odds before you enter. An uncapped prize draw never lets you do that.
The calculation
Odds = your tickets ÷ total tickets. That's the whole formula. If a competition is capped at 7,500 tickets and you hold 25, your chance is 25 in 7,500, or roughly 1 in 300.
And that's your worst case. The published total is the maximum that can ever be in a draw. At Grand Draws every competition is drawn on its closing date whether or not it sells out, so when fewer tickets have been sold there are fewer in the draw, and your real odds come out better than the published figure. Never worse.
Why a cap matters
An uncapped competition can keep selling tickets with no end in sight, so you can't know your odds at the moment you enter. They get worse with every ticket sold after yours.
A cap turns the odds into a fact you can check rather than a moving target. It's why we publish the total on every competition page, not just the price, and it's what the Government's voluntary code for prize draw operators encourages: telling players how likely they are to win, for example by showing the maximum number of tickets available.
Odds claims worth double-checking
Odds are where overclaiming tends to show up. It's worth a second look when you see:
- "Best odds anywhere" with no total ticket count to check it against.
- Countdowns or sold percentages that reset, creating urgency out of nothing.
- "Only a few left" on a competition with no published cap. Few of what? There is nothing to measure it against.
- A headline prize value rounded generously upward. A £2,500 prize advertised as "£3K" overstates it by £500.
What we publish
Every competition shows its ticket price, its total ticket cap, the per-person limit and the resulting odds for however many tickets you've picked. Our reward wheels publish their real odds too, on the rewards page.
None of that is generosity. Published odds are the only kind anyone can actually check.
Sources
- DCMS: Voluntary Code of Good Practice for Prize Draw Operators (gov.uk)
- CAP Code, section 8: promotional marketing (ASA)
- Gambling Commission: Free draws and prize competitions
Checked against these sources on .
Common questions
Do my odds improve if the competition does not sell out?
Yes. The published total is the maximum that can be in a draw, so if fewer are in it than that cap, your real chance is better than the published worst case. Our draws go ahead on the closing date either way.
Does buying more tickets improve my odds proportionally?
Yes. Ten tickets give ten times the chance of one, up to the per-person cap. The cap is there so no single entrant can dominate a draw.
Are free postal entries counted in the odds?
Yes. Every entry in the draw counts the same, whether it was paid for or posted.