Every Monday we go through the draws closing that week on the sites we cover and rank them. People ask how. It comes down to three numbers, none of which the competition page tends to lead with.
1. The cash alternative, not the RRP. Most winners take the money. A car listed at £75,000 with a £55,000 cash alternative is, for ranking purposes, a £55,000 prize plus whatever bonus cash is on top.
2. Total tickets, not tickets left. “200 left” sounds urgent. 200 left out of 500 and 200 left out of 20,000 are completely different draws. We always use the full cap.
3. What £10 buys. A 3p ticket and a £20 ticket can’t be compared on price. They can be compared on what a tenner gets you: 333 tickets in one case, half a ticket in the other. Every odds figure we quote is for a £10 spend.
From those three we get the medals: biggest prize, best odds, best value per pound (how much of the sold-out pot comes back to the winner), best instant wins, and separate car and cash rankings. Then we pick the three we’d actually enter.
The rankings go out by email first every Monday, free. You can sign up on the homepage.