Step 1
Ingest official public sources
Texas Lottery current games CSV, per-game detail pages, game procedures PDFs, and Texas Open Data Portal datasets.
Methodology
How scratchoddstexas models odds
We combine public prize lists and public sales data to estimate what each game may return on average. Simple mode focuses on dollars back, the average shortfall or amount above cost, and how often a ticket may finish ahead. These are estimates, not promises and not store-level odds.
Step 2
Normalize remaining prize counts
Remaining prize counts are calculated as original printed prizes minus claimed prizes, never below zero.
Step 3
Model ticket depletion
We estimate how many tickets may be left by comparing public sales with tickets printed.
Simple mode
Reading the Modeled Return Receipt
The receipt separates the long-run average from the chance of a profitable ticket, so one number never has to stand in for a game's overall quality.
Average return
Modeled dollars back
The estimated average prize value returned per ticket over many modeled tickets. For example, $7.80 back on a $10 ticket is a long-run average, not a prediction for the next ticket.
Compared with cost
Shortfall or above cost
We compare the modeled average back with the ticket price. Less than the price is an average shortfall; more is an average amount above cost; the same amount is modeled break-even.
Profit chance
Finish ahead
The modeled frequency of a ticket paying strictly more than its price. A payout equal to the ticket price is break-even, not finish-ahead. Official any-prize odds are shown separately.