What WonYet doesn’t check — and what it says instead

What WonYet does check

Almost everything on this page is a narrow exception, so here is the ordinary case first.

WonYet reads your numbers off a photo, saves the ticket, and waits. When the official numbers for the drawing printed on that ticket reach us, it compares them line by line and tells you the result. One ticket, one drawing, one comparison.

• 323 games — the US multi-state games, state draw games across the country, and major international lotteries.
• The full board, not a summary. Every line on a multi-line ticket, the bonus or extra ball where the game has one, the wager, and — when we can read it — the printed multiplier.
• Prize tables checked against official rules. Every game carries the date its prize chart was last reviewed, printed at the top of that game’s payout chart.
• A comparison, never a guess. If the official numbers for your drawing haven’t reached us, there is no verdict — not a zero, not a maybe. Nothing in WonYet invents a drawing.

What it isn’t: an official result. WonYet is a fast first look. Verify any apparent win through the lottery before you sign a ticket, hand it over, or throw one away.

What the app says when it isn’t sure

Four of the screens below do most of the work on this page. Learning them takes a minute.

“We couldn’t verify this drawing.” The official numbers never reached us. Your ticket is unjudged — not lost, and not a zero. If the results turn up later, WonYet re-checks on its own and updates.

“No win in the main draw.” Your main numbers didn’t win, and there’s something else on the ticket WonYet can’t score — usually a second drawing. This is deliberately not the same as “not a winner”, and WonYet won’t email you a win in this case, because there isn’t a confirmed one.

“You matched — confirm the amount.” You matched something and the figure isn’t final — usually a jackpot, or a multiplier we couldn’t confirm. WonYet only shows this screen when the ticket actually hit a prize level; the match is real, and it’s the number that needs confirming.

“Needs your eyes.” A scratch-off screen only. WonYet looked at your photo and couldn’t read enough of the ticket to call it, so the ticket in your hand settles it.

“We couldn’t finish this check.” A draw-ticket screen, and the difference matters: this one is never about your ticket. WonYet declined to grade it — a bet type it doesn’t price, a drawing that reached us incomplete, a bonus ball our results source never sends, a printed multiplier it couldn’t read, or a scan saved while you were offline. Looking harder at the paper won’t change it, so the screen names what is missing and points you at the official result instead.

And one screen is a flat statement of a loss. On the ticket itself it reads “No win this time”; in your wallet list, “Not a winner this time.” WonYet shows that when it compared your numbers against a drawing on file and they didn’t win — and on a scratch-off, when it read a fully revealed ticket and found no winning play. The rest of this page is about when that verdict can be incomplete.

1. Scratch-offs: the photo is the only evidence

What we don’t check: anything except what one read of your photo can see. There is no results service for instant games — no feed to compare against. WonYet doesn’t read the barcode, holds no prize table for the game, and knows it only by the name printed on the front. A scratch-off result is a careful read of your ticket’s own printed rules, and nothing more.

What the app shows you: for a fully revealed, clearly readable ticket, a straight answer — including “Not a winner this time”. This is the one place where a definite answer rests on a photo instead of an official drawing. Anything less than a clean read goes to “Needs your eyes”: a partial scratch, glare on the foil, a shaky read, or a ticket whose prize is only revealed when a retailer scans it. That last case shares a screen with a bad photo, so the reason you see may not be the real one.

WonYet also shows no claim deadline on a scratch-off, on purpose. A scratcher’s claim window runs from the day the state closes the game, not from any date on your ticket, and we don’t hold closure dates. A date derived from your scan would be a confidently wrong legal deadline, so we show none. The flip side: because we don’t know when a scratch game closes, a scratch win sits in your wallet as a live win indefinitely. We will never tell you it has run out of time.

What you should do: treat a scratch result as a fast confirmation, not a verdict, and claim a win promptly rather than sitting on it. Take any apparent win to a retailer — they can scan the barcode, which is the actual authority. And don’t bin a non-winning scratcher until you’ve checked whether your state runs a second-chance drawing for it: many states do, and none of them happen automatically — you enter the ticket yourself, using a code printed on it. How second-chance drawings work, with links to the official page for each state we’ve verified.

2. A ticket bought for more than one drawing

What we don’t check: drawings two onward. If your ticket says MULTI 5 DRAWS, ADVANCE PLAY, or covers a run of dates, WonYet takes the first drawing date printed on it and checks that drawing.

What the app shows you: a normal, confident result for the first drawing, and nothing at all about the rest. WonYet doesn’t flag this one — a win in drawing four on a five-draw ticket is invisible to us today.

What you should do: save a separate ticket for each drawing you want watched — same numbers, one entry per date — and WonYet checks each one. Or check the later drawings by hand on that game’s winning numbers page. If this changes, it’ll be on the changelog.

3. Which drawing your ticket is for

What we don’t check: we can’t always tell midday from evening from night. 176 of the games WonYet supports draw more than once a day. Most tickets print which drawing they’re for; some don’t.

What the app shows you, on the Pick 3 / Pick 4 / Pick 5 style games: it asks. When it can’t pin down the drawing, the ticket screen says so before you save — this game draws more than once a day and the ticket doesn’t say which drawing — and asks you to pick. But nothing forces you to answer: if you press save past that warning, the ticket is checked against whichever drawing WonYet had guessed, and you get a full, confident result for it. The warning appears once, on a screen you’ve left; the ticket itself doesn’t repeat it.

On the other 14 twice-or-more-daily games, it doesn’t ask at all. These are the ones sold as a set of numbers rather than a run of digits — New York Take 5 (Evening), New York Take 5 (Midday), Texas All or Nothing (Morning), Texas All or Nothing (Day), Texas All or Nothing (Evening), Texas All or Nothing (Night), Wisconsin All or Nothing (Midday), Wisconsin All or Nothing (Evening), Daily Million (9pm), Daily Million (2pm), Daily Million Plus (9pm), Daily Million Plus (2pm), Ontario Daily Keno (Midday), Ontario Daily Keno (Evening). On these, WonYet reads the game off your photo, and if that read landed on the wrong drawing of the day, you get a definite verdict for a drawing your ticket wasn’t in, with nothing on the screen saying so. This is the sharpest thing on this page.

A ticket entered in every drawing that day — a DAY & EVE or ALL ticket — counts as one saved ticket, so only the drawing you pick is checked.

What you should do: when WonYet asks which drawing, answer it — the drawing is on the paper, usually near the date, and picking it is one tap. On any of the games named above, check that the drawing WonYet recorded is the one on your ticket before you rely on the result. If your ticket plays two drawings, save it twice.

4. A second drawing on the same ticket

What we don’t check: most of them. Some games run a second drawing the same night using the same ticket — sold under names like Double Play, Plus, or a bonus draw. WonYet scores exactly seven of them: Powerball, Florida Lotto, Michigan Classic Lotto 47, New Jersey Pick-6, Indiana Hoosier Lotto, Michigan Fantasy 5, North Carolina Cash 5. For every other game, if a second drawing’s numbers reach us we’ll show them, but we don’t score your ticket against them.

What the app shows you, when it works: if your ticket prints a Double Play mark on a game WonYet can’t score it for, it will not call your ticket a loss. You get “No win in the main draw” — your main numbers didn’t win, and a drawing is still open. No win email is sent for that. The same is true on the handful of games where every ticket is automatically entered in a second drawing.

Where it doesn’t work: a Plus mark is a different word on the paper, and WonYet keeps it only for Indiana Hoosier Lotto. On every other game the mark is read and then dropped, and the ticket comes back as a plain “No win this time” with no mention of the second drawing. Pick and keno tickets get no second-drawing check at all — it simply isn’t part of how those are scored.

Those tickets can still land on the “No win in the main draw” screen for an unrelated reason — an extra number we couldn’t read on a Pick ticket, or a keno play we hold no prize table for. The wording there talks about a same-night bonus draw, which in those two cases it isn’t.

There is also no way to tell us. Outside the games named above, there is no control anywhere in WonYet for saying “I bought the second drawing” — so if the paper doesn’t print a mark we recognise, or prints nothing at all, the verdict can’t be corrected. And where a Double Play line isn’t printed on the ticket stock at all, WonYet can’t see one, assumes you didn’t add it, and grades your main numbers only.

What you should do: if you added a second drawing on one of the games named above, open the ticket in WonYet and mark it — it will then check that drawing. On any other game, look at your paper: if it shows a second set of numbers or a second-draw line, check those numbers yourself against that game’s winning numbers page, where a second draw’s numbers appear when they reach us. If you’re not sure whether your game even has a second drawing, your state lottery’s page for that game is the only place that will tell you for certain — we won’t guess on your behalf.

5. Unusual bets on Pick 3 / Pick 4 / Pick 5

What we don’t check: a small set of state bets that work differently from the standard menu. WonYet prices these plays: straight, box, straight/box, combo, front pair, back pair, middle pair, split pair, front three, back three, front four, back four. A handful of states sell something else — a bet on the sum of the digits, a bet that pays when your digits are one off, an extra shuffled play, a short two- or three-digit play on a four-digit game. Those we don’t price.

What the app shows you: one of two things, and neither is a note explaining the bet. If the bet arrives under its own name, WonYet refuses the save with an error rather than storing a bet it can’t score. The likelier case, and the one to watch: your ticket prints the bet in the lottery’s own shorthand, WonYet reads it as one of the standard plays above, and grades it as that play — which isn’t the play you made. There is no flag for that.

Keno has the same gap with less machinery, but it now announces itself. If your play uses a spot count we hold no prize table for, WonYet says so and names the spot count, rather than reporting a loss on a play it never priced.

What you should do: after you save a Pick or keno ticket, glance at the play type WonYet recorded. If it doesn’t match the words on your paper, don’t rely on the result — check that ticket at a retailer or on your state lottery’s site. The plays we do price, with their prizes, are on your game’s payout chart at /check/{game}/payouts.

6. Prize amounts that aren’t final yet

What we don’t check: what a prize will actually pay, when the lottery sets it after the drawing rather than before.

• Pari-mutuel prizes — on 50 games, some or all prize levels are a share of that drawing’s sales, split among that drawing’s winners. There’s no fixed table to look up and no service publishes the real figure. WonYet shows a typical amount for that level and says on the ticket that it’s an estimate.
• Jackpots. WonYet only ever shows a jackpot amount when the drawing we hold carries one. On Powerball, Mega Millions, Lotto Texas, New York Lotto the results feed sends the winning numbers without a jackpot figure, so a jackpot win on those shows no amount at all — just that you matched, and that the figure is pending official confirmation. Where we do hold a figure we show it exactly as the feed gave it to us: we don’t adjust it, and we can’t tell from the feed whether it’s the annuity total or the cash option.
• “For life” prizes — 5 games pay a stream instead of a sum (Millionaire for Life, UK Set For Life, Daily Grand, EuroDreams, Set for Life). There’s no single dollar value for that. WonYet shows a lump-sum-equivalent figure of our own alongside the real prize description. The description is the accurate part; the number beside it is our model.
• Keno. WonYet shows keno prizes as exact figures from the game’s payout table. On some keno games the top level is capped or shared when a drawing has several big winners, and we don’t model that — so confirm a top-level keno win before you count on it.

What the app shows you: for a jackpot with no figure, or a multiplier we couldn’t confirm, “You matched — confirm the amount”. For a pari-mutuel win, the amount with an estimate line beside it. For a for-life win, the amount and the prize description that goes with it. And one thing to know about your own totals: the Won figure in your ticket history adds exact prizes and estimated ones together without distinguishing them, so if any of your wins are of the kinds above, read that total as a rough figure.

The win email and the push notification carry no estimate wording at all. If a notification quotes you a number for any of the prizes above, open the ticket — the caveat lives there, not in the alert.

What you should do: for any of these, the lottery’s own figure is the only real one. Treat WonYet’s number as “this is roughly the level you hit”, and get the amount from the lottery before you count on it.

6a. A multiplier we couldn’t read

What we don’t check: whether we actually read the multiplier printed on your ticket. On 5 games the lottery prints a multiplier on every ticket, and it decides what a non-jackpot prize pays — Mega Millions, Florida Lotto, New Jersey Pick-6, Colorado Lotto+, Indiana Hoosier Lotto.

What the app shows you: if that number came through, WonYet applies it. If it didn’t — glare, a fold, a shaky read — WonYet cannot tell “we couldn’t read it” from “it was 1X”. On 4 of these games that distinction is settled for us, because the lottery prints no 1X at all: the un-multiplied amount is not a prize you could win, whatever your ticket says. So WonYet no longer shows it. You keep the win, the amount is held back, and you get the floor instead — the lowest multiplier that game prints, applied to your tier. On Mega Millions, four numbers plus the Mega Ball reads “worth at least $20,000”, not the $10,000 base that no ticket can be paid.

On 1 of them the lottery does print a 1X, so an unread multiplier is genuinely ambiguous — it may really have been 1X — and WonYet still shows the base amount as a settled figure. That is the remaining gap here. Where the multiplier is an optional add-on drawn at draw time instead of printed, an amount we can’t confirm has always become “You matched — confirm the amount” rather than a number. And on a small number of games a multiplier built into the ticket format isn’t modelled at all, so the figure you see is the base prize before it.

What you should do: if there’s a multiplier printed on your ticket and WonYet shows you a win, check that the multiplier it recorded matches the paper. If the amount looks low against your game’s payout chart, that’s why — take it to a retailer or your lottery’s site.

6b. A drawing that reached us incomplete

What we don’t check: whether the official numbers we received are the whole drawing. If a drawing arrives missing its Powerball, Mega Ball or Lucky Star, WonYet rejects the whole thing and waits — better no answer than a wrong one. But on 30 games where the bonus ball is drawn from the same pool as the main numbers, a drawing that arrives without the bonus is accepted and scored anyway.

What the app shows you: your ticket graded as though you matched no bonus ball. Usually that means one prize level lower than you actually won, shown as a settled amount. On 9 of those games there is no lower level to fall to at your match count, and the win disappears into a flat “No win this time” — a definite loss, from a drawing that was on file, with no note and no review. On those 9 the bonus normally reaches us within minutes of the main numbers, and your ticket is re-scored to the right answer automatically; the window in which the answer is wrong is short, but it is real, and nothing on screen marks it.

The 5 games where the bonus never arrives at all: on these the bonus ball is not late — it is simply not in the results we are sent, and we have never once received it. Until 25 July 2026 every ticket on them was graded as though the bonus had missed, for good: a top-tier win could be reported at a fraction of its real value, and at the low match counts where the bonus is the only thing that pays, a real winner was told “No win this time”. WonYet now stops instead. You get your main-number result, and a note naming the exact ball we are missing — the same one printed on your ticket — so the one open question is stated rather than guessed. It is not the answer you wanted, but it is the true one.

What you should do: if your game has a bonus ball drawn from the main numbers and you matched only two or three main numbers plus the bonus, check the drawing yourself — our own winning numbers page for that game shows the bonus ball when we have it, and your lottery’s site always does.

7. Extra games printed on the same ticket

The one we do check is the extra digit sold as Fireball, Wild Ball or Superball on 74 Pick games. If you played it and the extra number hasn’t reached us, WonYet won’t call your ticket a loss. If your main numbers won and the extra number is missing, you get the win with a note that the amount may go up.

Two things about that. First, the app currently files the Fireball message under the wrong heading — you’ll see wording about a same-night bonus draw, which a Fireball isn’t. Second, WonYet says it re-checks automatically when the number lands, and if a state’s feed simply never sends it, that check never comes. If a Fireball ticket has been waiting more than a few days, check it yourself.

What we don’t check: the add-on games some lotteries print beside your main numbers — a separate little game on the same slip, bought for a dollar or two, with its own numbers and its own prizes. Encore (Ontario), Extra (Québec), TAG (Atlantic), Spiel 77, Super 6, plus 5, Kicker (Ohio) are the ones WonYet reads past. We don’t ask about them and we don’t check them.

Some tickets are half draw game, half instant: the instant portion is revealed at the counter and isn’t part of what WonYet reads. Outside the US, several lotteries sell local extras alongside the main draw. We’d rather name none than describe one wrongly, so outside the main draw on your ticket, assume WonYet isn’t checking it.

What you should do: if there’s a second small game on your ticket, check its numbers on your lottery’s site. It’s usually one line and takes a moment.

8. When the money has to be claimed by

What we don’t check: the claim deadline on a ticket where the answer depends on which state sold it. The multi-state games — Powerball, Mega Millions, Lotto America, Millionaire for Life — run across dozens of jurisdictions, and the deadline is set by the one that sold your ticket, not by the game. Unless we have confirmed that jurisdiction’s window against its own lottery or statute, and unless the purchase state was read off your ticket, we show nothing.

What the app shows you: in that case, nothing at all. No date, no reminder, no calendar entry — because a claim deadline is a legal date, and a wrong one is worse than none. Where we do show a Claim by date, treat it as our best figure for that jurisdiction and check it against your own lottery’s claim page, which we link for every state we’ve verified. Scratch-offs never get a date, for the reason in section 1.

There’s a second, quieter thing. Whether a ticket still reads as a live win is worked out from one number per game, not from the state that sold it. So a win can still show as claimable after the selling state’s window has actually closed. Don’t use our clock as your deadline.

What you should do: check your own state’s window on our state-by-state claim deadline page, which links the official source for each. Windows differ a lot by state, and how a mailed claim is judged differs too — some states count the postmark, others only count it once they’ve logged the claim as received, which is the stricter of the two. Don’t leave a mailed claim to the last few days.

9. When results never reach us

What we don’t check: we don’t control when the official numbers arrive, and we don’t promise a time.

What the app shows you: while we’re waiting, your ticket says “Waiting on the drawing” — never a result. WonYet keeps asking for a while after the draw, on a schedule it learns per game. If a drawing still hasn’t arrived after three days, the ticket changes to “We couldn’t verify this drawing” and tells you to check with the official lottery. If the numbers turn up later, WonYet re-checks and corrects itself without being asked. But it doesn’t wait forever: past the claim window for that game, an unverified ticket is filed as expired like any other, without a drawing ever having been checked.

What you should do: a late drawing usually sorts itself out. If a ticket still says we couldn’t verify the drawing after a few days, check that one on your state lottery’s site rather than leaving it to us.

What WonYet will never do

Some of what’s on this page is a gap we intend to close. Some is a line we’ve drawn on purpose:

• We won’t tell you which scratch-off to buy. Prizes-remaining counts change the second a prize is claimed. A number that can go wrong isn’t one a never-wrong tool should assert.
• We won’t put a claim deadline on a ticket we can’t be sure about. A wrong legal date is worse than a blank space.
• When we know something on your ticket is unchecked, we say so instead of calling it a loss. This page is the list of the cases where we can still get that wrong.
• We won’t enter a second-chance drawing for you, and we don’t sell tickets. Those are the lottery’s job.
• We’ll say it out loud when we get something wrong. Corrections go on the changelog.

Questions people ask

Always verify your results through official lottery channels before claiming any prize. WonYet is not affiliated with Powerball, Mega Millions, or any lottery organization. · All lottery names and marks are trademarks of their respective owners.