Does a scratch-off game's payout change over time?

Yes. The return per dollar is prize money still unclaimed divided by tickets still unsold, and both change daily. Claiming a large top prize can drop a game's return sharply in one day, while a run of ticket sales with no big win can raise it.

How can a scratch-off game get better as it ages?

If tickets sell without the big prizes being claimed, the same remaining prizes are spread across fewer remaining tickets, so the return per dollar rises. About 4 in 10 tracked games moved in that direction.

How long has Scratch IQ tracked scratch-off payouts?

Scratch IQ has recorded a daily return figure for every tracked game since March 17, 2026, totalling 403,875 daily records across 41 states plus Washington, D.C.

Are New Scratch-Offs Better Than Old Ones?

Larry Nguyen

Founder of Scratch IQ

Written September 13, 2026

Slightly, on average, but the effect is small. Of 2,012 games tracked for at least 120 days, 54.8 percent returned less per dollar over time and about 41 percent returned more. The median game moved less than one cent per dollar.

Happy Sunday, folks. Are new games better than old ones because nobody has won the big prizes yet? It sounds right. So we tracked 2,012 games for about five months to find out.

An hourglass on a wooden surface with most of its sand already run through. — Photo by Creative Cen on Pexels.

Why the advice is only half right

The reasoning is sound as far as it goes. A brand new game has every prize it will ever have. But it skips a step that decides the answer. Prizes get claimed as a game ages while tickets sell. Both shrink together.

So the real question is which one shrinks faster. That is measurable, and we have been measuring it.

What six months of daily tracking shows

Scratch IQ has recorded the return on every game it tracks, every day, since March 17, 2026. As of September 13, 2026 that is 403,875 daily records.

A calendar page with red pins marking a run of separate dates. — One reading per game, every day, since March. Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Pexels.

Take the 2,012 active games with at least 120 days of history, about five months each on average, and compare where each one started against where it sits today:

54.8 percent of games got worse. The return per dollar fell.
About 41 percent got better. The return per dollar rose.
Across all of them, the middle game moved from about 69.4 cents per dollar down to about 68.6 cents.

So the old advice wins, barely. Slightly more than half of games decline as they age, and the typical decline is under a cent on the dollar. That is a much weaker effect than “buy new games” implies.

Why four games in ten get better

If prizes are only ever being claimed, how does a game get better? It sounds impossible. It is not.

The prize money left gets shared among the tickets left. When tickets sell and no big prize goes out, that money spreads across fewer of them. Each remaining ticket is worth a little more.

It also moves the other way, hard and fast. One person claiming a million-dollar top prize can drop a game’s return in a single day. The direction depends on what actually happened that week, which is why this cannot be guessed from a game’s age.

What this means in practice

Age is a weak signal. Knowing a game launched last month tells you very little, because 4 games in 10 move the other way.

The thing worth checking is not how old the game is, but what is actually left in it right now. Most state lotteries publish the count of prizes remaining at each level, updated regularly. That number answers the question directly instead of using age as a stand-in for it.

Scratch IQ reads those counts daily and turns them into a single EV/Dollar figure per game, so you are comparing what is in the games today rather than guessing from launch dates. The methodology page shows the formula.

The bottom line

New games are slightly better on average, and the edge is small enough that age alone is a poor way to pick. Across 2,012 games tracked for five months as of September 13, 2026, 54.8 percent declined and about 41 percent improved, with the middle game moving less than a cent per dollar.

Check what a game has left instead of how old it is. Every state page has a list of its newest games alongside the current numbers for every game on sale. Pick your own state from the state list.