How to Win Every Broadway Lottery in 2026 (and What to Do When You Do)

Broadway tickets cost what they cost. The lottery is the loophole.

This is the guide I wish I had when I started entering lotteries fifteen years ago, back when “the lottery” meant standing outside the Richard Rodgers at noon hoping your name got pulled from a glass bowl. The system has been digital since 2016. The math has gotten better, the apps have gotten worse, and the line at the Walter Kerr is now an algorithm. Here’s everything I’ve learned winning hundreds of $40 tickets across every operator in town.

If you came here to find shows currently running a lottery, scroll to the list at the bottom. If you want to win more often, read the whole thing.

The honest math: what Broadway lotteries actually pay

A “Broadway lottery” means you enter a digital drawing for the right to buy 1-2 tickets at a steep discount, usually $40-$49. Winners get a 30-minute window to pay, after which the seats roll back to the next entrant. Shows run lotteries because they need to fill the back of the orchestra and the front of the rear mezzanine — seats that would otherwise go empty on a Tuesday in February.

Win rates vary by show. Hadestown’s Lucky Seat lottery has roughly a 1-in-200 entry rate on weekdays. Wicked’s Broadway Direct lottery is closer to 1-in-1,000 because every tourist with a phone enters every day. The Outsiders sits somewhere in between. None of this is published — these numbers come from people I know who work the box offices, and from the back-of-envelope math I do every morning while drinking coffee in Kips Bay.

What you actually pay matters too. Most lotteries are $40-$49 per seat, two seats max. Some shows charge $79 (Hamilton, MJ, anything Broadway Direct labels “premium lottery”). That’s still half the rack-rate of a midweek orchestra seat for the same show. Save the rent money for rent.

Where you sit when you win is the part nobody tells you. Lottery seats are almost always partial-view side orchestra or the first two rows of rear mezzanine. Occasionally — and this is where the bragging happens at the bar afterward — you get a Tuesday-night box-seat upgrade because nobody bought it and the house manager doesn’t want it sitting dark. I’ve had a $40 first-row ticket to Hadestown. Front row. The performers sweat on you. I’d do it again.

The four operators (and the one nobody talks about)

There are four major digital lottery platforms for Broadway. Each works differently, draws at different times, and rewards different behaviors. If you only enter the one your favorite show uses, you’re leaving wins on the table.

Broadway Direct

The Disney + Nederlander-aligned platform. Runs lotteries for Aladdin, The Lion King, Wicked, Six, MJ, and a few rotating Nederlander shows. Entry opens at 12:01 AM the day before the show and closes at 9 AM the day of. Winners drawn between 11 AM and 1 PM. You’ll get a text and an email.

Quirk: Broadway Direct runs separate entries per performance. If you want Wednesday matinee and Wednesday evening, you enter twice. Each one is its own draw. People miss this and think they’re double-entering — they’re not, they’re entering two different lotteries.

Pro tip: Their entry form remembers your info if you create an account. Don’t enter as a guest twice — they’ll flag the second entry as a duplicate and toss both.

Skip to currently-running Broadway Direct lotteries

Lucky Seat

The Hadestown / Hamilton / Moulin Rouge / Book of Mormon operator. Runs the cleanest interface of the four, which is the kind of compliment you can only give in a category this low. Entry window opens 9:30 AM ET the day before. Winners drawn starting 10 AM the day of performance.

Quirk: Lucky Seat tells you the day before whether you won — earliest of any operator. That gives you a full evening to make dinner plans, swap childcare, or back out gracefully. Use it.

Pro tip: Hadestown’s lottery includes Standing Room as a backup if the seated lottery is sold out — $39 at the Walter Kerr box office on the day of performance, limit 2 per person. SR has the best sightlines on Broadway. Don’t sleep on it.

Skip to currently-running Lucky Seat lotteries

TodayTix

The mobile-first operator. App-only entry, no website fallback. Runs lotteries for ~20 shows in any given month including Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Death Becomes Her, & Juliet, and most of the smaller Off-Broadway houses (Minetta Lane, 59E59, the Public Theater’s Martinson Hall).

Quirk: TodayTix uses “rolling” lotteries — you enter once for a show’s run and stay entered until you win or the show closes. You don’t have to re-enter every day. Most people don’t know this and re-enter daily, which makes the queue look bigger than it is.

Pro tip: Rush tickets on TodayTix are a separate product from lottery tickets. The app shows both. Rush is first-come-first-served at a fixed time (usually 11 AM); lottery is a random draw. Set notifications for both on shows you actually want — you’ll catch the rush window twice a week without effort.

Skip to currently-running TodayTix lotteries

Telecharge (and the Roundabout / HipTix wing)

The Shubert Organization’s lottery system. Runs lotteries for everything at Shubert houses — the Schoenfeld, the Booth, the Music Box, the Broadhurst, the Imperial, plus the Shubert and Majestic themselves. Also runs the Roundabout Theatre Company’s HipTix student program for shows at the Todd Haimes Theatre and Studio 54.

Quirk: Telecharge has the most fragmented entry system. Each show’s lottery URL is its own micro-site, often at rush.telecharge.com/show/lottery/<show-name>. Don’t bookmark the parent site — bookmark each show’s specific page or you’ll miss entries.

Pro tip: Telecharge sometimes runs $40 rush tickets at the physical box office in addition to digital lotteries — usually for the Shubert house’s first 2-3 weeks of previews. If you’re trying to see something new at the Imperial or Music Box, walk by the box office the morning previews start. Not advertised. Worth the trip.

Skip to currently-running Telecharge lotteries

The one nobody talks about: Hamilton’s in-app lottery

Hamilton runs its own lottery through the Hamilton mobile app, not Lucky Seat or Broadway Direct. Open the App Store, search “Hamilton The Musical,” install, enter. $10 tickets, two per winner. Drawn daily. The rest of the show’s lottery distribution moved to Lucky Seat in 2024, but the app lottery is still alive and still $10.

People forget this exists. Win rate is roughly half of Lucky Seat’s standard Hamilton lottery because so few people bother with the app. Enter both. They don’t cross-check.

Pro tips: the stuff that wins lotteries

Everything below is what separates people who win a lottery once a year from people who win one a month. None of this is published anywhere official. All of it is field-tested.

Enter every weekday, never on weekends

Tourists enter every weekend. Locals enter every weekday. Win rates double Tuesday through Thursday because the population fighting you for seats shrinks by 60%. Skip Friday-Sunday entirely unless you’re trying to see a show that already announced a closing date. Save the entries for Wednesday matinees.

Stack multiple shows the same day

A lottery win means a 30-minute payment window. If you win two different shows for the same night (Hamilton 8 PM and Hadestown 8 PM, say), you get to choose. Operators don’t penalize you for declining. Enter 4-6 shows a day. Worst case, you have a great problem.

The 6:01 PM rule for SAME-day TodayTix rush

TodayTix rush slots reload every weekday at 11 AM ET and 6 PM ET. The 6 PM reload is for unsold seats from the night’s show — it’s the highest-quality rush window of the day because winners have 90 minutes to claim a seat that was about to go empty. Set a phone alarm for 5:59. Be ready.

Bring real ID and the actual credit card to the box office

When you win, your name is on the manifest. Box office checks ID against the manifest. They also check the credit card matches the name. People show up with a friend’s name on the win or someone else’s credit card — automatic rejection, no refund. The box office staff at the Shubert houses do not make exceptions. They’ve heard every story.

The standing-room secret nobody uses

Standing room at the back of the orchestra is sold the day of performance at the box office for $30-$39 depending on the show. It’s never sold out (most people don’t know it exists), and the sightlines from SR are often better than the actual cheap seats. The Walter Kerr (Hadestown), the Bernard B. Jacobs (Outsiders), and the Hudson (Every Brilliant Thing) all have great SR.

The catch: you have to walk to the box office. No phone, no app, no website. It’s the price of admission to the cheat code.

What to do when you win

Reading order matters here.

1. You’ll get a text and an email. Open the text first — it has the payment link. The email lags by 5-10 minutes sometimes.
2. You have 30 minutes from receipt of the text to complete payment. Not from when you read it. From when the operator sent it. Check your phone often on lottery days.
3. The payment screen asks for the credit card and ID name of the person picking up. This is the name that has to match at the box office. If you’re picking up tickets for a friend, put their name. If you’re picking up for yourself but using your spouse’s card, the cardholder name AND the pickup-name must match — change one, or change both.
4. Pickup is at the will-call window starting 1 hour before curtain. Bring photo ID. Some operators (Lucky Seat especially) let you skip will-call by scanning a mobile ticket. The text or email tells you which.
5. Get to the theater 30 minutes before curtain anyway. Lottery seats sometimes get upgraded at the door if the house manager wants to fill a better section. Standing room turns into seats this way too. Showing up early is how you get the box-seat surprise.

What to do if you don’t win

Three options, ranked.

Rush tickets. Most lottery shows also sell rush tickets — same-day, in-person, at the box office, first-come-first-served. Rush usually opens when the box office opens (usually 10 AM Tuesday through Saturday, noon on Sundays). Prices are similar to lottery ($40-$49), no draw, just a line.

Standing room. See the section above. $30-$39, day of performance, box office only. Available on every Broadway show with the SRO classification, which is most of them.

TodayTix discounted tickets. Not the lottery, the regular sales channel. TodayTix has a category called “Today’s Best” that shows up to 50% off seats two days out. Use this when you don’t care which show, but you want a $59-$99 seat to anything decent.

If all three fail and you really need to see a specific show on a specific night, check our Broadway Lottery Tickets hub for that show’s specific page. Every show on the site lists every lottery, rush, and standing-room option in one place — the same way I’d describe it if you asked me at a bar.

Shows currently running a lottery

Below is every Broadway and Off-Broadway show in town right now with an active lottery, grouped by operator. Each entry links to that show’s page with details on entry window, price, seat location, and our take. The list updates daily — if a show isn’t here, its lottery has ended or hasn’t opened yet.

Broadway Direct lotteries

• Aladdin at the New Amsterdam Theatre
• MJ at the Neil Simon Theatre
• Six at the Lena Horne Theatre
• Stranger Things: The First Shadow at the Marquis Theatre
• The Lion King at the Minskoff Theatre
• Wicked at the Gershwin Theatre

Lucky Seat lotteries

• Hadestown at the Walter Kerr Theatre
• Hamilton at the Richard Rodgers Theatre (also enter the in-app lottery for a second shot at $10 seats)
• Moulin Rouge at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre
• The Book of Mormon at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre
• Titanique at the St. James Theatre

TodayTix lotteries

• & Juliet at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre
• Animal Wisdom
• Becky Shaw at the Hayes Theater
• Cable Street at 59E59 Theater A
• Death Becomes Her at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
• Dog Day Afternoon at the August Wilson Theatre
• Every Brilliant Thing at the Hudson Theatre
• Girl, Interrupted at the Public Theater
• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Lyric Theatre
• Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody
• Indian Princesses at the Linda Gross Theater
• KENREX at the Lucille Lortel Theatre
• New Born at the Minetta Lane Theatre
• Schmigadoon! at the Nederlander Theatre
• School Girls; or, The African Mean Girls Play at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
• The Lost Boys at the Palace Theatre
• The Receptionist at the Pershing Square Signature Center
• What Happened Was at the Minetta Lane Theatre
• What We Did Before Our Moth Days at the Greenwich House Theater
• Girls Chance Music at the Vineyard Theatre

Telecharge lotteries

• Beaches: The Musical at the Majestic Theatre
• Buena Vista Social Club at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre
• CATS: The Jellicle Ball at the Broadhurst Theatre
• Chess the Musical at the Imperial Theatre
• Death of a Salesman at the Winter Garden Theatre
• Galileo at the Shubert Theatre
• Giant at the Music Box Theatre
• Heathers: The Musical at New World Stages
• Inter Alia at the Music Box Theatre
• Joe Turner’s Come and Gone at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre
• Little Shop of Horrors at the Westside Theatre
• Maybe Happy Ending at the Belasco Theatre
• Oh, Mary! at the Lyceum Theatre
• Operation Mincemeat at the John Golden Theatre
• Proof at the Booth Theatre
• Ragtime at the Vivian Beaumont Theater
• The Fear of 13 at the James Earl Jones Theatre
• The Great Gatsby at the Broadway Theatre
• The Outsiders at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre
• The Play That Goes Wrong at New World Stages
• Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) at the Longacre Theatre
• Wanted at the James Earl Jones Theatre

Roundabout / HipTix lotteries (Roundabout Theatre Company)

• Fallen Angels at the Todd Haimes Theatre
• Mix and Master at the Todd Haimes Theatre
• The Full Monty at the Todd Haimes Theatre
• The Imaginary Invalid at the Todd Haimes Theatre
• The Rocky Horror Show at Studio 54

Frequently asked questions

Can I enter the same lottery twice from different email addresses?
No. Every operator checks IP, phone number, and credit card on win. Duplicate entries get the entire pool of related entries thrown out — and yes, they can detect a household. One entry per person per show per performance.

What happens if I win and can’t make the show?
You decline by not paying within the 30-minute window. There’s no penalty. The seats go to the next entrant on the standby list. You can re-enter the same show’s lottery the next day with no consequence.

Are lottery seats actually bad?
Sometimes. Partial-view side orchestra at the Lyric (Harry Potter) is genuinely poor — you can’t see half the stagecraft. But lottery seats at the Walter Kerr (Hadestown), the Lyceum (Oh, Mary!), and the Belasco (Maybe Happy Ending) are excellent. Each show’s page on our site has notes on the specific seat sections.

Do lotteries close when a show is selling out?
Often they pause for a few weeks during peak demand, then return when sales soften. Hadestown paused its lottery for two weeks after its third Tony cycle and brought it back. Wicked never pauses. The pattern depends on the producer.

Are there lotteries for closed shows?
No. Once a show announces a closing date, the lottery often shrinks the window (fewer days, fewer seats) for the final two weeks. Once a show has closed, the lottery is gone. Our Broadway Lottery Tickets hub only lists currently-active lotteries.

What about Off-Broadway lotteries?
Most Off-Broadway houses with 200+ seats run a lottery through TodayTix. Off-Broadway lottery prices are usually $20-$35, lower than Broadway. The Lucille Lortel, the Linda Gross, the Minetta Lane, the Public Theater’s Martinson Hall — all run regular lotteries.

Can a friend pick up my tickets for me?
Yes, if you put their name on the payment form. The name on the form has to match the ID at the box office. You can put any name you want. Don’t put a fake name unless you enjoy losing $80.

What to do next

Read the show pages. Every one of the ~58 shows listed above has its own page on our site with the specific lottery rules, price tier, seat-section notes, and our personal take. The pages get updated daily.

Sign up for the Inner Circle — we pass along extra lottery wins to subscribers when we win seats we can’t use. Free, weekly, no spam.

And if you actually win a lottery this week, send me a photo from your seat. I write back to everyone who does. The good ones go on Instagram.

Bradford Buonasera is a third-generation New Yorker, the owner of Born in the City, and has won more Broadway lotteries than he can count. He lives in Kips Bay with his wife and two daughters. Email: brad@borninthecity.com