Online scratch cards in Australia: legal status and real odds

Key facts

Licensed Australian scratchies (The Lott's Instant Scratch-Its) are sold through retailers, over 3,800 of them outside WA. The Lott's website shows the range and runs a 2nd Chance Draw, but tickets are bought in store.
Online scratch cards are not covered by the lottery exemption in the Interactive Gambling Act: section 8D(2) excludes electronic scratch and instant lotteries, and ACMA lists scratchies among illegal online services.
Every Instant Scratch-Its game bulletin we checked pays 60% of total sales back as prizes. On average you get 60 cents back for each dollar.
Top prizes are rare: 1 in 1.3 million for the $1 Christmas Gift ticket and about 1 in 1 million for the $5 Crosswords Christmas ticket, in our calculation from the printed ticket numbers.
Offshore online scratch cards are casino-style instant games: faster, often with a higher stated return, but unlicensed in Australia and outside BetStop and local complaint schemes.

The honest answer on online scratch cards

There are two very different things called scratch cards in Australia.

	Licensed scratchies	Online scratch cards on offshore sites
Who runs them	Licensed lottery operators (Golden Casket, NSW Lotteries, Tattersall's Sweeps, the Lotteries Commission of SA) under The Lott's Instant Scratch-Its brand	Offshore casinos, unlicensed in Australia, using game studios' software
How you buy	From a retailer, over the counter	Online, played on screen
Legal to offer in Australia	Yes, as a licensed lottery	No: not exempt under the Interactive Gambling Act
Return to player	60% of sales in every game bulletin we checked	Set by the game maker and site
Speed	One ticket at a time, bought in a shop	Revealed on screen, so rounds can follow each other quickly
Protection	State-approved prize structures, a help line on the game bulletins	No Australian regulator or complaint scheme

So if you are searching for scratchies online, the licensed product is not sold that way, as far as we could find. What you will find online are casino-style instant games.

Why licensed scratchies are not sold online

The Interactive Gambling Act 2001 lets licensed lotteries be offered online through an exemption for "excluded lottery services" (section 8D). But section 8D(2) says that exemption does not apply to "an electronic form of scratch lottery or other instant lottery". In practice that puts online scratch cards in the same box as online pokies and casino games: prohibited interactive gambling services that cannot be offered to people in Australia. ACMA lists scratchies among the online services that are illegal to offer here.

That is why The Lott's Instant Scratch-Its page points you to a store. It says you can find "the closest Instant Scratch-Its store to you, from over 3,800 retailers across Australia (excluding WA)". Its ticket range page lists tickets at $1, $2, $5, $10, $20 and $50, "available at your local retailer". Online, you can browse the range, read each game's information sheet and enter eligible non-winning tickets in the monthly 2nd Chance Draw.

What a licensed scratchie pays back

Each Instant Scratch-Its game has a game bulletin with its prize structure. In Queensland, the Lotteries Rule lets the Minister approve each game, including the number of tickets, the number of winning tickets, the price and the number and value of prizes. We read the bulletins for six current tickets:

Ticket	Tickets printed	Total prize payout	Paid back as prizes
$1 Christmas Gift	6,500,000	$3,900,000	60% of sales
$2 Christmas Stocking	3,500,000	$4,200,000	60%
$5 Crosswords Christmas	3,100,000	$9,300,000	60%
$5 Money... I'm Home!	1,200,000	$3,600,000	60%
$5 Loaded with $20s and $50s	1,700,000	$5,100,000	60%
$10 King of Hearts	814,800	$4,888,800	60%

Every one pays out 60% of total sales, where total sales include a commission of 8 to 9 cents in the dollar on these tickets. That is a 40% house edge in casino terms, far higher than most casino games. The national figures agree: in the Queensland Government Statistician's Office data for 2024-25, Australians spent $7,953.76 million on lotteries and lost $3,193.92 million, an average return of about 59.8% across all lottery products, in our calculation.

Worked example. Four $5 scratchies a week for a year is $1,040. At 60%, the prizes average $624 and the average loss is $416. Some people win more, most win less, and a few win a lot, but the average is fixed by the prize structure printed before the tickets went on sale.

The odds of a top prize

The ticket range page lists the top prizes and the number of tickets printed for each game:

Ticket	Top prize	Number of top prizes	Tickets printed	Chance a ticket holds a top prize (our calculation)
$1 Christmas Gift	$10,000	5	6,500,000	1 in 1,300,000
$2 Christmas Stocking	$25,000	4	3,500,000	1 in 875,000
$5 Crosswords Christmas	$100,000	3	3,100,000	1 in 1,033,333
$5 Merry Christmas	$100,000	2	2,000,000	1 in 1,000,000

Those odds hold only at the start of a game. The Lott warns that "some or all prizes may have been won prior to you purchasing a ticket", so a top prize may already be gone. The top prizes are also a small slice of the prize pool, 1.3% to 3.3% of it on these tickets, in our calculation. Most of the 60% is paid out as smaller prizes.

Pundit tip: treat a small win as money back, not as the stake for the next ticket. Re-buying with every win is how a 60% game eats a budget.

Online scratch cards on offshore sites

Offshore casinos sell instant-win scratch cards built by game studios. Hacksaw Gaming, for example, markets its scratchcards to private operators and to "governments who need to digitize their scratchcard portfolio". On an offshore site aimed at Australians, though, they are casino-style games offered without an Australian licence.

Two things change compared with a paper scratchie:

The stated return is higher per dollar. The online instant games we checked publish returns from 88.20% to 99% (for example, Hacksaw's plinko versions run from 88.20% to 98.98%). Per dollar, that keeps less than a 60% scratchie.
The speed is much higher. A paper ticket takes a trip to the shop. An online card can be bought and revealed in seconds, and wins can be replayed at once. If a game returned, say, 95% and you played 300 one-dollar cards in half an hour, you would bet $300 and lose about $15 on average, about the same as the average loss on seven or eight $5 paper scratchies ($2 each).

There is also no Australian protection. BetStop does not cover illegally offered online casino games, and if an offshore site refuses a withdrawal there is no local regulator to complain to. ACMA blocks illegal gambling websites; our ACMA blocked sites page explains how.

Scratchies, keno and the rest

At a 60% return, scratchies sit near the bottom of the value table, well below pokies (state minimums of 85%) and keno. Our online keno page covers the other lottery-style game, and best odds casino games shows where scratchies would rank. The house edge guide explains how a 40% edge compares with the 1% to 5% of most table games.

The Instant Scratch-Its game bulletins we read carry a help line, 1800 858 858. If buying tickets has become a habit you want to break, the gambling help page lists free, confidential support, and the Interactive Gambling Act page has more on what the law allows online.

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Frequently asked questions

Can you buy scratchies online in Australia?

Not licensed ones, as far as we could find. The Lott sells Instant Scratch-Its through retailers, and the Interactive Gambling Act does not exempt electronic scratch or instant lotteries, so online scratch cards cannot legally be offered to people in Australia.

Are online scratch cards legal?

Offering them to people in Australia is not. ACMA lists scratchies among illegal online gambling services, and section 8D(2) of the Interactive Gambling Act excludes electronic scratch lotteries from the lottery exemption. It is not an offence to play, but offshore sites are unlicensed here.

What are the odds of winning on a scratchie?

It depends on the ticket, and each game bulletin lists its prizes. Across the bulletins we checked, 60% of ticket sales go back as prizes. Top prizes are very rare: for the $1 Christmas Gift ticket, 5 top prizes among 6.5 million tickets, or about 1 in 1.3 million.

Do online scratch cards pay better than real scratchies?

Per dollar, an online instant game with a stated return in the 90s keeps less than a 60% paper scratchie. But you can play online cards in seconds and replay winnings, so the total you bet, and lose, can grow far faster.

What is the 2nd Chance Draw?

The Lott runs a monthly draw that gives eligible non-winning Instant Scratch-Its another chance at a prize, which its page describes as up to $10,000. Terms and conditions apply.