Virginia runs one of the most player-friendly lotteries in the country. It consistently posts one of the highest payout rates of any state—returning roughly 78–80 cents of every dollar to players—with more than $4 billion in annual sales funding public education. A high payout rate is great news, but it still varies game by game, which makes finding the best-value scratch-off matter even more. Here's how to find the best Virginia scratch-off tickets.
The Virginia Lottery publishes prize-tier data for its scratch-off games, including how many prizes remain at each level. That's the foundation for spotting real value. The overall odds printed on a Virginia ticket were calculated at launch and never change, but the remaining-prize counts shift every day as prizes are claimed. Even in a high-payout state, a game that's been picked clean of its top prizes returns far less than its printed odds suggest.
Virginia games follow the universal pattern—higher-priced tickets return more per dollar:
Choose the highest tier that fits your budget, then find the best specific game at that price.
The number that matters most is expected value—what a game actually returns per dollar based on the prizes still in it. Add up the dollar value of the prizes still unclaimed, then divide by the cost of the tickets that remain. Virginia's high payout rate helps, but that's a statewide average: an individual game returning 85 cents on the dollar is a very different buy from one at 68 cents, even when both show the same overall odds on the back.
That range exists because two Virginia $10 games can launch with identical printed odds, yet later one still holds most of its top prizes while the other has given them all up. The printed odds never change—they're a launch-day snapshot that's never updated—so the only way to tell the better buy is to read the current remaining-prize data. If you also play to the south, our North Carolina scratch-off guide covers the same approach for NC games.
Checking the VA Lottery data for one game is simple. Doing it across the entire catalog, every day as the numbers change, is tedious—so we handle it for you. Every day we pull the official Virginia prize data for every active scratch-off, recompute the real odds and expected value, and rank them, so you can instantly see which VA tickets are worth buying right now at any price. Check the live board before you buy, and you'll stretch every Virginia dollar even further.
Current payout is what a ticket returns per dollar based on the prizes that are still unclaimed right now — not the odds printed when the game launched. Advertised payout is shown beside it so you can see the gap.
| # | Game | Price | Current payout | Advertised | Top prizes left |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bursting with $5,000s | $30 | 78.9% | 78.5% | 948 of 2684 |
| 2 | Loaded with $2,000s | $20 | 76.7% | 75.3% | 1616 of 3372 |
| 3 | Dominion Dollars | $30 | 76.0% | 76.0% | 4 of 6 |
| 4 | Cash Blast | $20 | 75.4% | 75.4% | 2973 of 5407 |
| 5 | Crossword Spectacular #2375 | Virginia Lottery | $10 | 74.8% | 72.3% | 2 of 3 |
| 6 | $20,000 Bankroll | $20 | 74.8% | 75.0% | 97 of 200 |
| 7 | $173,000,000 Extravaganza | $30 | 73.8% | 73.8% | 3 of 6 |
| 8 | Set for Life | $50 | 73.1% | 72.5% | 3 of 6 |
| 9 | In The Money | $30 | 73.1% | 73.3% | 1 of 4 |
| 10 | The BIG Ticket: The Perfect Gift | $20 | 72.5% | 72.8% | 2 of 5 |
These Virginia games have no top prize left and are still on shelves. The jackpot you would be buying for no longer exists.
| Game | Price | Top prize | Remaining | Still selling |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rollin’ Riches | $2 | $20k | 0 left | 34.1% still unsold |
| Lucky Gems | $1 | $1.5k | 0 left | 32.2% still unsold |
| 2X The Money | $1 | $4k | 0 left | 27.2% still unsold |
See all 96 Virginia games ranked → Every figure above comes from official Virginia lottery prize data and refreshes daily.
