Start with published facts.
Official data comes from published lottery sources where available: ticket price, prize amounts, original and remaining prize counts, original overall odds, game status, and claim deadlines.
“Official” describes the input’s source, not an endorsement of PrizeGauge. On sample screens every value is fictional, including those illustrating official-data fields. Source metadata identifies the actual origin of each dataset.
Direct calculations, visible inputs.
Some values can be calculated directly from published information: prize depletion, the percentage of top prizes remaining, and original expected value when original inventory or outcome probabilities are available.
A calculation is only as complete as its inputs. Missing values are shown as unavailable rather than zero. Calculations are published by the backend pipeline; the website formats and compares those results.
Estimates where inventory isn’t public.
New York Lottery publishes remaining prize counts but does not generally publish exact unsold ticket inventory. Estimated tickets remaining, current modeled probabilities, current modeled EV, and modeled ROI therefore require assumptions.
Prize depletion may differ from ticket sales because of reporting delays, claims timing, and unobserved inventory. Estimates contain uncertainty and must not be interpreted as exact counts or guarantees. Where published, conservative, base, and optimistic scenarios illustrate sensitivity; they are not automatically statistical confidence intervals.
The backend publishes the prize-depletion-pretax-v2 model (older releases may retain v1). It prefers verified official printed-ticket inventory, otherwise estimates original inventory from compatible inception odds and prize counts. At least two common prize tiers estimate depletion. Current rankings compare pretax gross payout per dollar spent. PrizeGauge does not invent rankings or scenario ranges in the browser.
Confidence in the estimate, not the ticket.
High, medium, low, or unknown confidence is the backend’s published assessment of model reliability. It is not a probability of winning and does not establish statistical certainty.
The frontend does not assign a numeric confidence score. Unknown confidence means the publisher has not supplied a usable assessment. Final confidence criteria must be documented alongside the production model.
What expected value means.
Expected value is the probability-weighted average prize payout across possible outcomes.
EV = Σ(probability of outcome × value of outcome)
Launch EV prefers verified original prize counts divided by official tickets printed; otherwise it sums cash prize amounts divided by published inception odds. Unvalued annuities, free tickets, and other noncash prizes suppress full EV. Current modeled EV uses estimated remaining inventory and published prize availability. Both describe an average across many hypothetical outcomes, not the outcome of an individual ticket.
Modeled ROI describes estimated net return relative to ticket price: (modeled EV − ticket price) / ticket price. A −20% modeled ROI indicates an estimated average payout of 80% of ticket cost, before applicable taxes or other costs.
Positive or comparatively high expected value does not mean an individual ticket is likely to win or that purchasing tickets will be profitable. Many outcomes may pay nothing, even when a rare large prize materially influences the average.
EV Without the Top Prize
What would the average prize payout look like if the biggest prize paid nothing? Rare top prizes can strongly influence the average. This alternate view keeps the same possible outcomes and ticket inventory, but treats the highest prize tier as $0.
EV without top prize = Σ(remaining prize count × cash prize value for every tier below the highest tier) / modeled remaining tickets
PrizeGauge does not redistribute the top-prize probability among other outcomes. Every equally highest prize tier contributes $0, even if its published remaining count is nonzero. ROI without the top prize is (this alternate EV − ticket price) / ticket price.
The backend must publish this metric and its eligibility rules. If it is missing or cannot be calculated, the website displays Unavailable. It never subtracts a guessed jackpot contribution. This is a pretax average across many possible tickets, not a prediction for the next ticket.
Chance of Any Prize
How likely is a remaining ticket to have any published prize? This includes the top prize and prizes that only give you the ticket cost back. Winning a prize is not necessarily making a profit.
Current chance of any prize = sum of all known remaining prize-winning outcomes / modeled remaining tickets
The percent and “1 in X” odds describe the same probability. The backend publishes these values; the website formats them. We do not substitute original odds when current estimates are missing.
Official original overall odds describe the game at inception, using the original ticket population. PrizeGauge’s current chance uses observed remaining prizes and an estimated remaining ticket population. These have different dates and bases and should not be treated as interchangeable.
A release, not a real-time feed.
The separate collector periodically checks official sources and preserves historical observations. Validated public releases are published atomically: a current-release pointer selects immutable release files.
Source report date, calculation date, and publication date are distinct. The site displays timestamps supplied by the dataset and flags releases older than 72 hours as stale. This is a freshness notice, not a promised update schedule.
Charts show available observations and break at missing values. Trend figures require comparable model versions and prize cohorts, with a baseline near seven or thirty days earlier. Insufficient or incompatible history remains unavailable. Fictional fixture mode is prominently identified and is not current New York Lottery data.
Explore the rankings →