All competitions / Methodology
How CompSignal works
CompSignal is the 0–100 score behind every ranking on Prize Scout. This page sets out exactly what goes into it, what doesn’t yet, and what the number can and cannot tell you. Every input is published on the competition’s own page, and the ranking is never influenced by commission.
What CompSignal is, and isn’t
CompSignal is a weighted composite built from data we hold on every live draw: odds, prize value, timing and how recently we checked the figures. It compares a draw against every other tracked draw at the same budget — it is a relative value signal, not a forecast. A high score means a draw looks better than most of what else is currently live for that spend. It does not mean a good absolute chance of winning, which stays low for prize competitions generally, however a draw scores. See tonight’s ranking or best odds by budget for the live board this methodology describes.
The six components
CompSignal is built from six components, each published with a fixed weight. Four are live today; two need sales history that doesn’t exist yet and are currently switched off — see the next section for why, and what happens to their weight in the meantime.
| Component | Published weight | Status | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|
| Odds efficiency | 30% | Live | Your current odds at this budget, ranked against every other tracked draw at the same budget. The only component that directly answers “what does my money buy”, which is why a score cannot be produced without it. |
| Draw proximity | 20% | Live | How soon the draw closes. Current conditions are a closer guide to closing conditions the nearer the draw gets, so a draw in its final hours scores higher on this component than one still a week out. |
| Projected closing value ratio | 20% | Not yet live | Where the value ratio is likely to land once the draw actually closes. Needs accumulated sales history to project from. |
| Operator sell-through deviation | 15% | Not yet live | How this draw’s pace compares with the same operator’s own past draws. Also needs sales history — this time, the operator’s track record rather than the draw’s own. |
| Prize significance | 10% | Live | The estimated prize value, ranked against every other tracked draw. A bigger prize scores higher here, independent of ticket price or odds. |
| Data freshness | 5% | Live | How recently we confirmed the figures, discounted by how much we trust the source they came from. See below for how those two combine. |
Why two components are switched off right now
Projected closing value ratio and operator sell-through deviation both need sales history that only builds up once a draw — or an operator — has been tracked for a while. Prize Scout’s tracking went live on 2026-08-17, so that history is still accumulating. Rather than fill the gap with a guessed middle value, we exclude both components entirely and rescale the remaining four so their weights still add up to the full score. A guessed value would move rankings using a number nobody actually measured, and would make an early score silently incomparable with a later one once real history exists. Excluding is visible instead: we’d rather show a smaller number honestly than a bigger one we can’t stand behind.
With those two excluded, the live components’ published weights of 30%, 20%, 10% and 5% (65% of the total) are rescaled proportionally to fill the score, so odds efficiency currently carries roughly 46% of the outcome, draw proximity around 31%, prize significance around 15% and data freshness around 8%. If odds efficiency itself can’t be computed for a draw — usually because we don’t have a current sold count — no CompSignal is shown at all, rather than one built only from timing and freshness. Those alone can look confident about a draw we actually know very little about.
What “confidence” means
Every CompSignal score carries a confidence label — high, medium or low — based on how much of the total weight actually went into it. With the full set of six components available that would be high. With two switched off, 65% of the weight is available, which we currently label medium, and you’ll see it noted next to the score wherever it isn’t high. This is a different thing from how much we trust any one figure that fed into the score — that’s a separate per-source judgement, described next, and from how much we’ve verified about the operator running the draw, which our operator comparisons cover on their own terms.
Current odds, odds per £, and value ratio
Current odds compare the tickets already sold against the number of entries your budget buys, as the field stands right now. Odds per £ restate the same thing per pound spent, so a 79p ticket and a £2 ticket can be compared on the same basis rather than by ticket count alone. Both describe the field as it is today, not as it will be at close.
Value ratio is a different question: ticket revenue divided by the prize’s estimated value, shown only where we hold both figures. The max value ratio uses the full ticket cap — the operator’s economics if every ticket sells. The current value ratio uses tickets sold so far instead. Neither is a measure of your odds of winning: it describes the operator’s economics on that draw, not yours.
Why “if it sells out” is the headline figure
Every competition card leads with odds “if it sells out” rather than current odds, and that’s a deliberate choice, not a more optimistic-sounding default. A draw can be settled two different ways: only among the tickets actually sold by close, or across the full number of tickets on offer regardless of how many sold. We don’t currently know, for any operator we track, which method a given draw uses — it isn’t something operators reliably publish. The “if it sells out” figure is the one that holds either way: it’s exactly right if the draw is made from the full field, and it’s a conservative floor if it isn’t — a draw that doesn’t sell out leaves fewer entries competing for the same prize, so the real odds at close can only be as good as this figure or better, never worse. Current odds are still shown alongside it for context, but they rest on an assumption about the draw method that we can’t verify, so they aren’t the number we lead with.
Data freshness
Every figure on Prize Scout carries a “last confirmed” time, and stale numbers are labelled rather than presented as live. The data freshness component combines two things: how long ago we checked a figure, and how much we trust the source it came from. That’s a product of the two, not an average — a trustworthy number checked six hours ago and a shaky number checked moments ago both count as weak evidence, and neither is rescued by its stronger half.
What CompSignal isn’t
CompSignal ranks tracked draws against each other for a given budget. It is not a prediction of which draw will win, not a guide to what any individual entry will return, and not a substitute for reading a draw’s own terms before you enter. A high score never implies a likely win — the absolute chance of winning any one prize competition is low, whatever it scores relative to the rest of the board.
These rankings compare draws against each other. A high score means better relative value — it does not mean a good chance of winning, which stays low in absolute terms. See setting a budget and reading the odds honestly for more on entering within your means.