Ballot, Lottery, Drawing: What Each Major Calls It

London calls it a ballot. Chicago calls it a lottery. New York calls it a drawing. Boston does not have one at all. Most of those words describe the same thing: a random draw among more applicants than there are places.

Which Majors use which word?

• Ballot: London, Tokyo, Sydney, Cape Town. The Commonwealth-English term, "putting your name in the ballot," used across the UK, Japan's English-language materials, and Australia and South Africa.
• Lottery or drawing: Chicago, Berlin, New York. The American-English equivalent. New York's own press releases specifically say "drawing"; Chicago's materials describe a "non-guaranteed entry drawing," which press coverage and this site both shorten to "lottery."
• Qualifying, not a random draw: Boston. No lottery for the main field at all; entry is earned by beating a published time standard.

Are ballot and lottery actually the same mechanic?

Yes, for London, Tokyo, Sydney, Cape Town, Chicago, Berlin, and New York. Every applicant who meets the basic entry requirement, usually just being old enough and clearing a health declaration, gets equal odds, and a random draw decides who gets a bib. The name is a matter of regional English, not mechanics: "ballot" is standard across the UK and Commonwealth countries, which is also why Sydney and Cape Town use it, while "lottery" and "drawing" are the American equivalents.

Why does Boston use neither word?

Because Boston's field is not randomly drawn. Every entrant first has to clear a published qualifying time for their age and gender, and even then, Boston ranks all qualified applicants by how far under standard they ran and fills the field from the fastest down, which is why a real cutoff time emerges after the fact even though the official standard did not change. New for 2027, Boston Qualifier Selection adds a small random draw, but only among runners who already qualified and missed the cutoff, not the general public. The Boston cutoff, explained covers the full mechanics.

Does the word change your odds?

No. Whatever a race calls its process, what matters is the ratio of applicants to places. London's ballot and New York's drawing both produce low single-digit odds; Chicago's lottery accepts roughly 25%, far better than either, and Sydney's ballot does better still at roughly 32.5%. The word is vocabulary, not math. The odds are set by demand against a fixed field size, ranked across all 8 Majors here.

Does this vocabulary ever cause confusion?

Occasionally, mostly for runners applying to more than one Major in the same year. A UK-based runner used to "entering the ballot" for London can find Chicago's application form talking about a "drawing" and assume it means something different, when it is the identical process: submit an application before the deadline, wait for a random result. The safest habit is to check each race's own page for its exact terminology and deadline rather than assuming one race's process maps directly onto another's timeline.

Where do I enter each one?

Free email alerts track whichever Major you are chasing, ballot, lottery, or qualifying window, whatever the organizer calls it: London, Tokyo, Sydney, Cape Town, Chicago, Berlin, New York, Boston.

Sources: London Marathon Events: enter the ballot, Bank of America Chicago Marathon: Apply, New York Road Runners: 2026 TCS New York City Marathon Drawing record, Boston Athletic Association: qualify for the Boston Marathon