Lemons & Sevens

View Original

£5 National Lottery Scratch Cards

Recently £10 scratchcards were removed from sale in the UK due to the increased risk of problem gambling, making £5 cards the highest priced scratch cards available.

Being the high rollers we are, we've compiled all of the need-to-know information about £5 scratch cards right here - including reviews of some of the most popular scratch cards available in the UK.

Chances of winning on a £5 scratch card

You can expect to find a winning £5 card around 1 in 3.4 times, including breakeven cards. In terms of making a profit on £5 scratch cards, you can expect to win at least £10 in around 1 in every 5.8 cards. 

There are nearly as many breakeven £5 scratch cards as there are of all other prizes combined, which is why £5 scratchcards are so difficult to turn a long term profit on.

Payback Percentage on £5 Scratch Cards

The payback percentage on £5 cards typically hovers in the 70% range. You will find £5 scratch cards with a payback percentage as high as 72% (12 Months Richer) and as low as 69.95% (Christmas Advent Calendar). 

These odds make £5 scratchcards the best value cards in the UK, and in the long run you will lose less money playing £5 scratchcards than £1, £2, or £3 scratchcards.

We recommend always going for the highest payback card available over anything else, such as jackpot odds. The payback percentage is the main factor in how much money you will win/lose playing any given card. 

£5 Scratch Card Jackpots

Jackpots for £5 scratchcards (excluding the fruity £500 scratch cards) are all at least £1,000,000, and in some cases go up to £2,000,000 (such as the £2m Purple and Monopoly Riches). 

£5 scratch cards have the highest possible jackpots out of all scratchcards in the UK. As you would expect, the odds are pretty slim.

Your chances for a £1,000,000 jackpot on a £5 scratch card are roughly 1 in 3,000,000 at best - and as bad as 1 in 6,500,000 for jackpots of £2,000,000. 

This means that in order to win a £2,000,000 jackpot you would have to spend £32,500,000 on average.

Top £5 Scratch Cards In The UK

Christmas Advent Calendar

Odds: 1 in 3.76

A Christmas favourite, the advent calendar card has 24 games with 24 chances to win. 

With the Christmas Advent Calendar scratch card you can actually win 24 times on a single card (although you shouldn't count on that happening any time soon). We'd expect that full cards (with 24 wins) would be reserved for very large wins of 4 figures and up. 

To win on this scratch card, you need to simply match the 2 symbols in any given game to win the amount shown. If you match 2 "double" symbols in any game you will get twice the amount shown for that game.

The payback percentage on this scratch card is only 69.95%, fairly low for a £5 card.

Your chances of making a profit on the Christmas Advent Calendar card (excluding any breakeven cards) is 1 in 6.01. Again, this is stingy for a £5 card as most others sit in the 5.4 to 5.8 range.

There are a total of 6 x £1,000,000 jackpots available on this card, with a 1 in 3,015,980 chance of winning - making the Christmas Advent Calendar scratch card the best chance of winning a £1,000,000 jackpot on UK scratch cards. 

Fruity 500s / Festive 500s

Odds: 1 in 3.15

Festive £500s is the Christmas take of Fruity 500s - a popular bingo style scratch card. The jackpot for this scratch card is only £500, but the chances of winning are far higher than any of the larger prizes on other cards. This is the best card if you just want to find a winner, with 1 in 3.15 returning a win - which is far higher than any other card we've reviewed. 

To win on the Fruity 500s scratch card, you just need to match one of your numbers to one of the winning numbers. If you're really lucky, you might find the "win all" symbol which is worth at least £100, or as much as the £500 jackpot.

The payback percentage on this card is 70.99% which is about average for a £5 scratchcard. 

Your chances of making a profit on this card, excluding any break even cards is 1 in 6.5

You can expect to win £500 on this card once in every 1,646 cards. 

12 Months Richer

Odds: 1 in 3.35

The 12 Month Richer scratch card has a unique jackpot of £1,200,000 which is £100,000 for every month of the year. It is a good value for money card, with 4 different games included. 

The games included on this scratch card are three separate "match 2" games and an "add to 10" game where you need to get 2 numbers which add up to a total of 10 in order to win. 

The payback rate for this card is 71.93%, making it the most generous scratchcard on sale in the UK.

Your chances of making a profit on this card, excluding any break even cards is 1 in 5.61. This card is only beaten by Festive £500s for profit chances.

If you are looking for a profit, and the chance at a huge jackpot, 12 Months Richer is likely the best card at the moment.

Your overall chance of winning the jackpot on 12 Months Richer is 1 in 3,391,080. It's worth noting that there are better chances out there, but not by a significant margin. The best chance of winning a jackpot on £5 scratch cards available at time of writing is 1 in 3,015,980 (for the advent calendar scratch card). 

Triple Jackpot

Odds: 1 in 3.41

Triple jackpot has a retro theme and, as the name suggests, 3 different jackpot amounts. The jackpots available are £100,000, £250,000 and £1,000,000, there are 3 of each jackpot available.

This is a unique structure for a £5 scratch card, as they usually have a maximum prize of £1,000,000, and then a number of consolation prizes which are a maximum of just £10,000, far smaller than the jackpot amount.

The Triple Jackpot scratch card has 4 distinct games. 3 are called "bonus games" where you need to find the National Lottery Crossed Fingers Logo to win £5, £10 or £20. The main game is separated into 5 columns of numbers, the aim of which is to match one of the winning numbers with one of your numbers in the same column.

Your chances of making a profit on this card, excluding any break even cards, is 1 in 5.77.

The payback rate for this card is 70.83%, about average for the £5 scratchcards on sale at the moment.

The jackpots for this card have an individual chance of 1 in 3,691,820, there are 3 of each and the chance of winning them is equal. Your chances of getting any of the 3 jackpots on a card are 1 in 1,230,606. Although still very unlikely this is as good as it gets for a jackpot. 

£5 Scratch Card Odds

If you are looking for the best chances of winning on a scratch card in the UK then playing £5 cards is your best option. They consistently have the highest payback percentage, chances of winning and jackpots. Remember to always check the National Lottery website for remaining jackpots if you plan on playing any scratch cards, you don't want to play a game with no remaining jackpots. You can also keep an eye on our site for info on any new cards when they come out. We usually review them on our YouTube channel too.

If you want more info on lower priced scratch cards check out our post on £2 cards and our review of the overall best cards to win on.


See this gallery in the original post

You may also like

See this gallery in the original post

See this form in the original post