Your Real Odds at All 8 Marathon Majors, Ranked
Sydney has the best published odds of any Marathon Major right now, accepting roughly 32.5% of its 2026 ballot. New York has the worst, at roughly 1%. Between those two sit five more Majors with wildly different entry mechanics, plus Boston, which skips the odds question entirely by requiring a qualifying time instead of a draw.
How do the 8 Majors rank by ballot odds?
From most to least forgiving, among the Majors that publish or imply a rate:
1. Sydney: roughly 32.5% (2026 ballot, down from about 44% in 2025) 2. Chicago: roughly 25% (Chicago Event Management's own estimate, field against applicants) 3. Berlin: roughly 20% (published rate; SCC Events does not release application totals) 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?
Sydney, and yes. The 2026 TCS Sydney Marathon ballot accepted about 32.5% of applicants, down 27% year over year from about 44% in 2025, even as applications jumped 56% to more than 123,000. Sydney's odds are still the best among the eight, but the trend line 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, Berlin 2025 race recap, Chicago 2026 ballot results, New York 2026 drawing results, Sydney 2026 ballot results, Cape Town 2027 ballot page