Frequently asked questions - Scratch

Players have 180 days after a game has ended to claim a Scratch prize. Select any game listed in the Scratch section of our website and it will tell you if a game end date has been established. Games remain posted 60 days after the 180 days has expired. After that they will be removed from our website.

You can find this information on the our website in the Scratch game section, or you can ask any Colorado Lottery retailer for a Scratch Game Top Prizes Remaining report, which is available off of their terminal.

Winners info.

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The odds of winning Scratch games vary. If the odds of winning in a game is 1 in 4, this doesn't necessarily mean that if four tickets are purchased, one would be a winner. Odds are based on the total number of tickets available for sale in a game, not on an individual purchase.

Our Scratch tickets are produced and distributed in a completely random, double-blind system. First, prizes are scattered randomly throughout the entire run of the ticket. No one at the Lottery, or the printer, knows where the winning tickets are placed - that is generated through a random number generation system. Next, the tickets are shipped to our warehouses for distribution. Tickets are randomly pulled from the entire ticket run and shipped to random retailers. There is no rhyme or reason to the ticket distribution. So, randomly placed prizes are randomly distributed to random retailers. We have no way of knowing where the winning tickets are shipped or where they will show up. The reason it seems as though some locations have more winners is simply a matter of sales - if more tickets are purchased in the Denver Metro Area, it would follow that a commensurate number of winners would be located in the Denver Metro Area - and those retailers who sell a lot of tickets will have a greater likelihood of getting a pack with a winner in it just because they sell that many more tickets and have to replace them with new packs of tickets.

We’re sorry to hear that didn’t have better luck with your ticket purchases. Please keep in mind that odds listed on our tickets apply to the entire universe of tickets, not individual purchases. The odds also include break-even prizes. Your non-winning tickets may be eligible for one of our second-chance drawings, which provides another opportunity to win.

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No. Ticket printing costs prevent the Lottery from making sample or void tickets available to players.

Select the following for information about how to get the clues to the Word of the Day contest, and on how to enter,

Word-of-the-Day