How Raffle Odds Work, With the Arithmetic Shown
The chance of winning a raffle is the tickets you hold divided by the tickets sold. A little arithmetic also tells organisers how to price tickets.
The basic sum
In a raffle with one prize, your chance of winning is the number of tickets you hold divided by the number sold. One ticket out of 500 is a chance of 1 in 500, or 0.2 per cent. Five tickets out of 500 is 1 in 100.
More than one prize
When several prizes are drawn and a ticket can win only once, each draw removes a ticket from the drum. With many tickets and few prizes the effect is small, and multiplying your single-prize chance by the number of prizes gives a close estimate.
What a ticket is worth
The expected value of a ticket is the prize value multiplied by the chance of winning. A prize worth 1,000 in a raffle of 500 tickets gives each ticket an expected value of 2. If the ticket costs 5, the buyer is on average giving 3 to the cause. That gap is the point of a fundraising raffle, and it is fair to say so plainly.
Pricing for organisers
- Estimate how many tickets you can realistically sell, not how many you printed.
- Multiply by the ticket price to get expected income.
- Subtract the cost of prizes, printing and any permit fee.
- If what remains is small, raise the price, seek donated prizes or reduce the prize list.
Being straight with buyers
Print the number of tickets on sale, the prizes, the draw date and how winners are contacted. People are generous when they can see the terms.
The same arithmetic applies to any game of chance, which is why it helps to set a budget before you play.
Checked 2026-10-13. Rules vary by place; confirm locally.