Speetto Instant Lottery

The four ticket types: 100, 200, 300 and 500 yen

Speetto is the scratch-off arm of takarakuji, Japan's public lottery system. The format is simple: a small card with a panel you scratch off to reveal symbols. If the revealed symbols match the winning pattern printed on the card, you win the amount shown. There is no draw, no waiting, and no numbers to pick.

Tickets come in four price categories: 100 yen, 200 yen, 300 yen, and 500 yen, and they are always available at lottery ticket counters nationwide¹. The 100 yen cards are the entry level, with small prizes and a low stake. The 200 and 300 yen cards sit in the middle, and the 500 yen cards carry the biggest top prizes of the scratch range.

The larger scratch cards, sometimes sold under names like Large Scratch, run 300 to 500 yen per ticket¹. These are the ones to look at if you want a shot at a meaningful payout rather than a bit of fun. The price you pay is the price printed on the card, and there is no service fee or commission on top.

One thing worth knowing before you buy: the prize structure is fixed at printing. Each card in a print run has a predetermined outcome, and the scratch panel only hides it. That means the odds are set by how many winning cards were printed in that run, not by anything that happens at the counter.

How to buy a ticket

Buying Speetto is a counter transaction. You walk up to a lottery ticket counter, look at what is on display, pick the card or cards you want, and pay in cash. There is no form to fill in, no numbers to choose, and no slip to mark.

Lottery counters are found in a lot of places around Japan:

• inside and beside major train stations
• in department stores
• in some shopping arcades
• at dedicated takarakuji booths

If you see a counter with scratch cards laid out under glass, that is the place.

You can buy as many tickets as you like, subject to what is in stock. Counters sell until they run out of a particular card, and popular 500 yen cards can sell out during busy periods. If you have your eye on a specific card, it is worth asking the staff whether they still have it before you commit.

Payment is cash. Some counters may take electronic payment, but cash is the safe assumption. Bring yen. Foreign cards are not reliably accepted at lottery counters, and there is no online purchase route for scratch tickets at all.

If you are a visitor, this is one of the easiest gambling-adjacent purchases you can make in Japan. There is no membership, no registration, and no ID needed for a normal over-the-counter purchase. You hand over your money, you get your card, and you are done.

How to check if you have won

Checking a Speetto card is immediate. You scratch the panel, compare the symbols to the winning pattern printed on the card, and you know right away. There is no draw to wait for and no results page to check later.

This is the same model used by instant scratch games elsewhere. In Canada, for example, instant games give you results right away based on the ticket itself, with no draw involved³. Speetto works the same way: the outcome is on the card.

If you are not sure whether a card is a winner, take it to the counter and hand it to the staff. Lottery booth staff can check a ticket for you during the prize payment period⁴. They will scan or inspect it and tell you what it is worth. This is the safest route if the symbols are ambiguous or the card is damaged.

For number-selection takarakuji games bought on the official site, results show up in your My Page account⁵. That does not apply to scratch tickets, which are not sold online, but it is worth knowing if you also play Loto 7 or the Jumbo.

Keep your card flat and undamaged. A ticket that cannot be read clearly because it is torn, stained, or scratched through the printed area may not be payable. Treat the card like cash once you have bought it.

Prizes and top prize amounts

Speetto prizes are tiered. Most cards pay a spread of small amounts, with a small number of larger prizes and one top prize per print run. The top prize depends entirely on which card you bought and how much it cost.

The 500 yen cards carry the biggest top prizes in the scratch range. The 100 yen cards pay smaller amounts but cost less, so the trade-off is straightforward: more spent, bigger potential payout, lower chance of hitting the top tier.

For context on how instant games are structured elsewhere, some instant tickets feature large top prizes as big as CAD 2.5 million⁶. Japan's scratch cards do not reach that level, but the principle is the same: a small number of cards in each run carry the headline prize, and the rest pay smaller amounts or nothing.

Prizes are paid in yen, in cash, at the counter for anything up to 100,000 yen per ticket¹. That covers the vast majority of scratch wins. If you hit a top prize above that threshold, the payment moves to a bank counter, which is a different process covered below.

There is no tax withheld at the counter for lottery winnings in the ordinary case. You receive the amount printed on the card. If you are a non-resident with a large win, the tax position is worth checking with a professional, but for normal scratch amounts this is not a practical concern.

Claiming your prize

Small wins are the easy case. Winnings of up to 100,000 yen per ticket can be received immediately at lottery ticket counters nationwide¹. You hand over the winning card, the staff verify it, and you are paid in cash on the spot. No forms, no waiting period, no bank visit.

If your win is above 100,000 yen per ticket, you cannot collect it at the counter. Winnings in excess of 100,000 yen must be claimed at a Mizuho Bank branch¹. That means finding a branch during banking hours, bringing the winning ticket, and going through the bank's process. It is slower and less convenient than the counter, but it is the only route for larger scratch prizes.

The same threshold logic applies across Japanese lottery products. For Loto 7, prizes over 50,000 yen per winning entry are claimed at a Mizuho Bank counter⁴. The exact threshold differs by product, so check the back of your card or ask at the counter if you are unsure which route applies.

Bring identification for a large claim. Banks will want to verify who you are, and a passport or residence card is the practical document for a foreign resident or visitor. For a small counter payout, ID is usually not required, but having it with you costs nothing.

Sign the back of your ticket if there is a space for it. A signed ticket is much harder for anyone else to claim if it is lost or stolen, and some claim processes expect a signature. Do this as soon as you buy, before you scratch, so the card is protected either way.

Odds of winning

The odds on a Speetto card are set at printing. Each print run has a fixed number of winning cards across each prize tier, and your chance of winning is simply the number of winning cards divided by the total cards printed. Nothing you do at the counter changes that.

This is different from a draw-based game, where the odds are calculated from the number of possible number combinations. With a scratch card, the outcome is already decided before you buy. You are not competing against other players in real time; you are buying one card out of a fixed run.

Because the odds are printed into the run, they vary from card to card. A 500 yen card with a big top prize will generally have longer odds on that top prize than a cheaper card has on its smaller prizes. The card itself, or the counter display, usually states the top prize and sometimes the overall odds.

For a sense of scale on instant-game odds generally, one Japanese pachinko machine model lists a jackpot probability of 1 in 224.5⁷. That is a different product entirely, and the figure says nothing about Speetto cards, but it shows the kind of numbers involved in instant-win style games: frequent small outcomes, rare large ones.

The practical takeaway is that Speetto is a small-stake, small-prize product. Buy it for the fun of the scratch and the outside chance of a bigger win, not as a plan. Set a limit before you start and stick to it.

Speetto compared with other takarakuji games

Takarakuji is the umbrella name for Japan's public lotteries. Under it sit the number-selection games, the seasonal Jumbo, and the scratch cards. Speetto is the scratch branch: instant, cheap, and paid at the counter.

The number-selection games work differently. Loto 7 costs 300 yen per entry, and 7 main numbers plus 2 bonus numbers are decided by a draw⁴. Loto 6 costs 200 yen per entry⁸. These are draw games: you pick numbers, wait for the draw, and check the results afterward. Results are available 24 hours a day on PC and smartphone, in newspapers the day after the draw, or by handing the ticket to lottery booth staff during the prize payment period⁴.

The Jumbo Lottery is the big seasonal draw. A Halloween Jumbo ticket costs 300 yen per ticket⁵. Jumbo tickets can be bought online, 24 hours a day after member registration on the official lottery site⁵, and results for tickets bought there can be checked on My Page⁵. Scratch tickets cannot be bought this way.

If you want to play takarakuji online, there are five internet sales sites where purchases are possible 24 hours a day². That covers the number-selection games and the Jumbo, not Speetto. For scratch cards, the counter is the only route.

So the split is clean. If you want instant results and a low stake, buy Speetto at a counter. If you want a draw, bigger jackpots, and the option to play online, look at Takarakuji (Japanese public lotteries) and the number-selection games.