What Is the Easiest Marathon Major to Get Into?
Sydney is probably the easiest Marathon Major to get into through a ballot. It publishes no acceptance rate, but 123,000-plus entries for a field targeting 40,000 finishers cap its odds at about one in three, better than any Major that does publish a rate. But Boston sidesteps the odds question entirely: there is no lottery to lose, only a qualifying time to beat, which plenty of runners find more achievable than any draw.
Which Major has the best ballot odds?
Probably Sydney, though only Tokyo, London and New York publish a rate. Roughly ranked most to least forgiving:
1. Sydney: not published, at most about one in three (123,000-plus entries for 2026 against a field targeting 40,000 finishers) 2. Chicago: not published (200,000-plus applications for 2026; Chicago Event Management says drawing spots depend on guaranteed registrations) 3. Berlin: not published (SCC Events releases neither an applicant count nor a rate) 4. Tokyo: roughly 10% (published rate, holding steady across recent editions) 5. London: roughly 1.3% (based on the last year London published a rate; the 2027 draw did not) 6. New York: roughly 1% (2026 non-guaranteed drawing)
Cape Town has never published an acceptance rate for either of its two ballots so far, so it cannot be ranked either. Full sourcing sits on each race's own ballot history page.
Does "easiest" mean "easy"?
No. Even at Sydney at least two out of three applicants miss, and the trend is worsening: entries jumped 56% in a year to more than 123,000 for a field targeting 40,000 finishers. Every Major has seen demand climb, so "easiest" here means best odds among a set of races that are all, to varying degrees, hard to get into.
Is Boston easier than entering a ballot?
For a specific kind of runner, yes. Boston runs no ballot at all: hit the age-graded qualifying standard inside the B.A.A.'s entry window and there is nothing left to luck. That trades a random draw for a training block, which is a different kind of hard, not an easier one, but it removes the lottery entirely. Starting with the 2027 race, the B.A.A. also added a random draw for roughly 1,000 spots among qualifiers who beat their standard but missed the cutoff, covered in Boston's new 2027 lottery. Runners who can already hit their standard get in with certainty; runners who cannot are shut out regardless of luck.
What about Cape Town?
Unknown. Africa's newest Major has run two ballots since its 2025 debut and published an acceptance rate for neither. Roughly two-thirds of its field stays reserved for African-passport runners, which likely shapes the odds for applicants elsewhere, but nothing is confirmed. Check the Cape Town ballot page as more data publishes.
So which is actually easiest?
If odds are the only variable you can influence, probably Sydney. If a certified time is more within your control than a lottery result, Boston. Everyone else sits somewhere between the two: apply to the ballot Majors and treat Sydney, Chicago and Berlin, whose rates are unpublished but whose demand is far below London's and New York's, as the higher-probability bets. The Marathon Ballot Simulator models how each race's published or estimated rate compounds across multiple entry years, which matters more than a single year's odds for anyone planning to keep applying. Each race's own page tracks the current cycle: London, Tokyo, Boston, Berlin, Chicago, New York, Sydney, Cape Town.
Sources: Abbott World Marathon Majors, Sydney 2026 ballot results, Chicago 2026 ballot results, Tokyo 2026 ballot results, London 2027 ballot results, New York 2026 drawing results, Cape Town 2027 ballot page