What's a Good Value Ratio? Benchmarking the UK Competition Market

We get asked this every week: what counts as a good Value Ratio? Numbers in isolation mean nothing without context, so here is what we see in our live data.

The headline number

Across the full UK market, the typical Value Ratio for a paid prize competition sits in the 1.5 – 3.0 range. Below 1.5 is genuinely good. Below 1.2 is rare and worth jumping on. Above 3.0 is the operator taking the lion's share.

By category

• Cars. Tighter range than most. Top draws often land around 1.3 – 1.8 because cash alternatives are well-defined and the market is competitive.
• Cash. Cash draws can have very low VRs (sometimes below 1.0 as loss-leader promos), but they are also where promotional ticket caps and instant-win mechanics distort comparisons.
• Watches and luxury goods. Wider variance. RRP vs second-hand value gets argued about; we use cash alternative where published.
• Tech. Often sits higher (2.5+) because lower prize values and small ticket pools amplify the operator margin.

By prize tier

Higher prize values tend to compress towards the lower end of the VR range — the operator's relative margin shrinks because fixed marketing and platform costs are amortised across a bigger pot. Sub-£10k prizes tend to have higher VRs.

The honest answer

"Good" depends on the alternative. A 1.8 VR is good if every comparable draw that day is sitting at 2.5+. The same 1.8 is mediocre if there is a 1.2 sitting next to it. That is the whole point of comparing live — open the aggregator, sort by VR, and pick from the top.