Free calculator
Lottery shrink calculator for gas station and c-store operators.
Pack volume
Use the actual ticket count for the games you sell
Shrink and scale
Well-managed: < 0.5%. Median: 1–3%. High: 4–8%.
Estimated exposure
Scenario from 0.5% to 3%
An input range, not an industry median. Investigate differences using your own source records.
Weekly shrink = packs × tickets/pack × avg value × shrink rate. Annualized = × 52. Illustrative assumptions for your estimate. Replace them with your own store records.
How this is computed.
Pack volume, packs activated per week.
Enter packs activated per week for one store. Use the same time period for every input.
Average ticket face value.
Use the average face value of the tickets in the packs being assessed. Calculate games separately when pack sizes differ.
Tickets per pack.
Use the actual number of tickets in each pack. Pack sizes vary by game and lottery operator.
Estimated shrink rate (as % of pack revenue).
Enter an assumed percentage or a rate measured from your own records. The default is an example, not an industry benchmark.
Weekly exposure formula.
Weekly exposure = packs/week × tickets/pack × avg ticket value × shrink rate.
Annualized exposure.
Annual exposure = weekly × 52.
Scenario bands.
The displayed bands help compare inputs within this tool. They do not establish how your store performs against other operators.
What the result tells you.
Illustrative arithmetic using 8 packs per week, 60 tickets per pack, $5 per ticket and 2% shrink gives $48 per week, or $2,496 per year per store. Across 5 stores that is $12,480. Reducing an assumed rate from 2% to 0.5% would reduce this exposure by 75%. That is a scenario, not a recovery forecast.
Use this when…
- Sizing the lottery shrink problem at your stations.
- Building the ROI case for moving from manual to serial-level reconciliation.
- Comparing portfolio shrink exposure across stores.
- Estimating the value of a 30-day reconciliation discipline.
Related.
Features
Buyer guides
From the blog
Loss attribution beats theft prevention.
Why the goal isn't to stop shrinkage at an independent station, it's to know who, when, and how. A field guide to building an attribution system instead of a security one.
The lottery shrinkage playbook.
How to instrument scratcher accountability across barcode scanning, serial-gap detection, and shift attribution. The four-week sprint that closes the leak.
FAQs.
How accurate is the estimate?
Directionally accurate; not precise. The biggest unknown is your actual shrink rate, most operators without serial-level tracking guess low. Use the calculator to test sensitivities; the real number comes from running serial-level reconciliation for 30 days.
Does this include draw-game shrink?
No, only scratcher (instant ticket) shrink. Draw-game shrink (Powerball, Mega Millions) is a separate category with different mechanics, typically driven by terminal-vs-POS sync issues rather than physical loss.
What's a realistic target shrink rate?
Under 0.5% of pack revenue is achievable with serial-level reconciliation and 30 days of pattern detection. Operators rarely hit zero; some residual variance (count error, vendor short-ships) is inevitable.
See how StationPro automates lottery shrink calculator.
Review your assumptions and the underlying workflow. We agree on the data and access needed before working with your store records.