What do competition tickets cost, and is a cheap ticket better value?
Our tickets cost from 9p each, sold in minimum orders of 25, so the smallest order on a 9p draw is £2.25. Price varies by prize: 9p on the £250 and £500 draws, rising to 23p on the £10,000. A cheaper ticket is not simply better value, and it pays to know which way the trade runs. The cheaper draws have smaller ticket pools, so the same money buys far better odds: £10 gives you roughly a 1 in 180 chance on the £250 draw and about 1 in 4,651 on the £10,000 one. The dearer ticket buys a larger share of a much larger prize. Neither is a trick; they are different bets, and both publish the numbers so you can check before you pay.
What a ticket costs on each draw
Every competition publishes its ticket price, its total ticket count and the most any one person may buy. Those three numbers are what decide your odds, and none of them moves once a draw opens.
Tickets are sold in minimum orders of 25. That is a payment-processing floor rather than a sales tactic: card payments carry a small fixed fee per transaction whatever the amount, so a single 9p ticket would cost us more to process than it costs to buy. Selling in 25s keeps the price at 9p instead of pushing it up to cover the fee.
- £250 draw: 9p a ticket, 20,000 tickets, minimum order £2.25.
- £500 draw: 9p a ticket, 27,000 tickets, minimum order £2.25.
- £1,000 draw: 11p a ticket, 40,000 tickets, minimum order £2.75.
- £2,500 draw: 14p a ticket, 80,000 tickets, minimum order £3.50.
- £5,000 draw: 18p a ticket, 133,750 tickets, minimum order £4.50.
- £10,000 draw: 23p a ticket, 200,000 tickets, minimum order £5.75.
Why a cheaper ticket does not simply mean better value
It is tempting to read 9p as the bargain and 23p as the expensive one. The honest answer is that they buy different things.
A cheaper draw has a smaller ticket pool, so your share of it is larger. Spend £10 on the £250 draw and you hold 111 of 20,000 tickets, which is roughly a 1 in 180 chance. Spend the same £10 on the £10,000 draw and you hold 43 of 200,000, which is about 1 in 4,651. Same money, odds roughly twenty-six times better on the cheaper draw.
The dearer ticket is not worse, it is buying a share of a far bigger prize. Each ticket in the £10,000 draw represents 5p of prize money; each ticket in the £250 draw represents 1.25p. You are paying more per ticket because there is more behind it.
So the question is not "which is cheapest" but "would I rather have a better chance at a smaller amount, or a smaller chance at a larger one". Both are legitimate, and we publish the figures for both rather than steering you.
What the price includes
What you see quoted is what leaves your account. The VAT is already folded in, and there is no booking fee, no card surcharge and no mysterious line item waiting at the end.
Larger orders earn extra tickets rather than a discount, which keeps the arithmetic honest: 250 tickets comes with 25 free, 500 with 75, and the top tier lands exactly on the per-person cap. They are real additional entries in the same draw, not money off.
The free route costs nothing at all
A postcard gets you a ticket. Not a lesser ticket, not a consolation route, the same numbered entry drawn from the same pool, and it costs you a stamp. Sites that bury this are telling you something; ours sits in the terms as an equal way in, because without it the whole thing would legally be a lottery.
The £10,000 board is no exception. If you never want to hand over a card, you never have to.
How to check any of this yourself
Each competition page shows the ticket price, the total number of tickets and the cap per person before you enter, along with the odds for the quantity you are considering. The odds calculator will do the arithmetic for any combination of those numbers, including ones from other sites. Every live draw is also laid out side by side, with what a given spend buys on each, on the cheap prize competitions page.
After a draw runs, the full entry list and the result are published, so the ticket count you were quoted is the ticket count that was drawn from.
Common questions
Why is there a minimum order of 25 tickets?
Because card payments carry a small fixed fee per transaction regardless of its size, so taking a single 9p ticket would cost us more than the ticket. Selling in 25s lets the price stay at 9p rather than rising to cover the fee. The smallest order on a 9p draw is £2.25.
Is 9p really the full price of a ticket?
Yes. 9p is what one ticket costs, VAT included, with nothing added at checkout. The only condition is the minimum order of 25 tickets.
Do cheaper tickets mean worse odds?
No, the opposite. The cheaper draws have smaller ticket pools, so a given amount of money buys a larger share of them. What the cheaper draws have is a smaller prize.
Can I enter without paying anything?
Yes. Every competition has a free postal entry route with identical odds to a paid ticket, and no purchase is necessary on any draw.