Payback is the share of the money paid in for tickets that comes back out as prizes. It tells you more about a competition than the size of its top prize.
A worked example
This example uses made-up numbers. A competition sells 1,000 tickets at £2, so £2,000 goes in. Its prizes add up to £1,500. Payback is £1,500 ÷ £2,000, which is 75%. The other £500 covers the site’s costs and profit.
How to work it out
Multiply each prize by how many of it there are, add them up, then divide by what a full sell-out of tickets brings in. You need the full prize list and the ticket total. If a site won’t show them, you can’t do the sum.
What it does and doesn’t tell you
Payback is an average across every ticket. It is not a promise about yours: some tickets win nothing and a prize is not always more than the ticket cost. What it does tell you is how much of the money in is set aside for players.
Why the top prize misleads
A big headline prize can sit on top of a low payback. Two competitions with the same top prize can return very different shares of ticket money.
What to check
- Is every prize listed, with how many there are?
- Is the ticket total shown?
- Are the chances shown per ticket?
- Do the prizes still stand if fewer tickets sell?
How Hoardsy shows it
Every competition page lists its prizes and your chance per ticket before you enter, so you can run this sum yourself. See how UK prize draws work and how results are checked on Provably fair.
Last checked 12 October 2026.
Hoardsy
See the competitions
Choose a draw or an instant game. Every prize and its chance is on the page before you enter.
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