Competition odds calculator

How the maths works

Your chance of winning is the tickets you hold divided by the tickets in the draw. To say it as "1 in N", divide the other way: tickets in the draw ÷ your tickets. Here it is for a draw capped at 1,600 tickets with one winner:

• 1 ticket: 1 ÷ 1,600, which is 1 in 1,600, or 0.0625%.
• 10 tickets: 10 ÷ 1,600, which is 1 in 160, or 0.625%.
• Your chance of not winning is the rest: with 10 tickets, 1,590 in 1,600, or 99.375%.
• If the draw closes with only 1,000 tickets sold, the same 10 tickets are 10 ÷ 1,000: 1 in 100, or 1%.

The calculator shows the sell-out figure because it is the one you can know before you enter, and it is the worst your chance can be. For the longer version, read our guide, competition odds, explained honestly.

Why ticket caps matter

A ticket cap is the most tickets that can ever be in a draw, and it is published before you enter. That turns your worst-case odds into a fact you can check rather than a guess.

Without a cap, a draw can keep selling after you have entered, and every ticket sold after yours makes your chance smaller. You cannot know your odds until it closes.

Every Grand Draws competition publishes its cap and a limit on how many tickets one person can hold, across paid and postal entries combined. Every draw goes ahead on its closing date, sold out or not: there is no minimum number of entries and no rollover. So the sell-out figure really is the worst case, and a draw that does not sell out leaves you with better odds.

The draw runs automatically at 9pm on the closing date. The result is published, and anyone can recompute the winning ticket for themselves.

Does buying more tickets improve your odds?

Yes, in proportion. In a single-winner draw, 10 tickets give you exactly 10 times the chance of 1 ticket, and doubling your tickets doubles your chance.

It never guarantees a win, though, and the chance you add stays small next to the chance of not winning. With 50 tickets in a 1,600-ticket draw, your chance of not winning is still 1,550 in 1,600, or 96.875%, if it sells out. Every extra ticket costs the same as the first.

So decide what you are comfortable spending before you look at the numbers, and treat it as the cost of taking part, not as an investment. If you would rather not pay at all, a free postal entry has the same chance as a paid ticket. Our responsible play page has practical ways to set a limit, and where to find support. You must be 18 or over to enter.

Odds with more than one winner

Some draws have more than one winner. Winners are drawn without replacement: once a ticket is picked it cannot be picked again, so every winner is a different ticket.

Your chance of at least one win is 1 minus the chance that none of your tickets is picked:

chance = 1 - C(T - k, w) / C(T, w)

where T is the tickets in the draw, k is your tickets, w is the number of winners, and C(n, r) counts the ways to choose r tickets from n.

A quick estimate is your tickets × winners ÷ tickets in the draw. The exact figure is never higher than that, because two winners can never share a ticket. With 10 tickets in a 1,600-ticket draw with 3 winners, the estimate gives 1 in 53.3 and the exact chance is about 1 in 54 (1.86%). Set the number of winners in the calculator and it does the exact sum for you.

Odds on our competitions

Paid competitions open 30 October 2026. Each one publishes its ticket cap, so here is the chance one ticket gives you if the draw sells out.

Every competition also has a free postal route on the same odds. See all competitions

Odds questions, answered