Your Real Odds at All 8 Marathon Majors, Ranked
Only three Majors currently publish a ballot acceptance rate: Tokyo at roughly 10%, London at roughly 1.3% for its last rated draw, and New York at roughly 1%. Sydney, Chicago and Berlin publish no rate, though Sydney's entry count shows its odds can be no better than about one in three. Cape Town publishes nothing, and Boston skips the odds question entirely by requiring a qualifying time instead of a draw.
How do the 8 Majors rank by ballot odds?
Roughly from most to least forgiving, with unpublished rates marked as such:
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)
Boston and Cape Town sit outside this ranking. Boston is qualifying-only, with no ballot at all. Cape Town has never published an acceptance rate for its ballot.
Which Major has the best odds, and is it getting worse?
Probably Sydney, and yes. The 2026 TCS Sydney Marathon ballot drew more than 123,000 entries, up 56% in a year, for a field targeting 40,000 finishers. The organizer publishes no acceptance rate, but those numbers cap the odds at about one in three, and the trend points the same direction as every other Major: more people are applying every year. The 2026 Sydney ballot results carry the full breakdown, and how the Sydney ballot works covers entry mechanics in full.
Which Major has the worst odds?
New York, at roughly 1% for the 2026 non-guaranteed drawing, which pulled a record 240,000-plus applications for around 2,400 open places. London is close behind at roughly 1.3%, though that figure comes from the last year London published an official rate. The record 1,338,544 applications for the 2027 race went unrated: London Marathon Events did not publish a bib allocation or an acceptance rate for that draw, only the raw application count. Full sourcing sits on the New York 2026 drawing results and London 2027 ballot results pages.
What about Boston and Cape Town?
Boston doesn't run a ballot, so there is no odds figure to publish. You either run a certified qualifying time inside the BAA's window or you don't get in through that route, though starting with the 2027 race about 1,000 additional spots go to a random draw among qualifiers who beat their standard but missed the cutoff (see Boston's new 2027 lottery). Cape Town, the newest Major, has run two ballots since its 2025 debut and published an acceptance rate for neither. Two-thirds of its field stays reserved for African runners, which likely affects the odds for applicants elsewhere, but nothing is confirmed. The Cape Town 2027 ballot page has everything that is public so far.
Do the odds get better if you keep entering?
Not automatically, and it depends entirely on the race. Some Majors weight repeat applicants; most run a flat random draw every year regardless of history. The Marathon Ballot Simulator models how a given acceptance rate compounds across multiple entry years for each Major, which is the more useful question than the single-year odds above for anyone planning to keep trying.
Odds move every year on every Major that publishes one, so treat the numbers above as the latest snapshot, not a fixed rule. Each race's own page tracks the current cycle: London, Tokyo, Boston, Berlin, Chicago, New York, Sydney, Cape Town.
Sources: Abbott World Marathon Majors, London 2027 ballot results, Tokyo 2026 ballot results, Chicago 2026 ballot results, New York 2026 drawing results, Sydney 2026 ballot results, Cape Town 2027 ballot page