Best Way To Win Lottery Scratchers
In this video I show my proven method of winning the lottery scratch off, I show how to win the lottery, this tip is legit and works, I get $230 in winnings. All Scratchers games expire 180 days after the game ending date. Expired Scratchers games. Take this $5 game for a spin for a chance to win top prizes of up to $100,000! Game Details: Available Games. Players must be 18 years or older to purchase Missouri Lottery tickets.
[1] You Might Be Wrong!
A ton of winning scratch-off tickets are just thrown away. Theseare normally just small winners (but not always).
They are not thrown away because people can't be botheredto claim small amounts. They are thrown away because peoplehaven't realised that they did actually win!
Or sometimes because they lost the ticket. Or washed it in theirjeans pocket. Or the dog ate it. You get the picture :-)
The number of unclaimed prizes every year for each lotterycompany is insane.
So firstly, take care of your tickets. Treat them as winners untilyou are positive they are not.
But second DOUBLE CHECK every ticket.
Play the game first. Visually check it and decide how much youwon. Then keep that ticket until you can scan it at a self-checkmachine to see what that says.
If there's no self-scan machine, then by all means ask the shopassistant to scan it for you. But do this having some idea ofwhat the ticket is worth. And sign the back first.
The newspapers are full of stories of people who thought theyonly won small, but then it turned out to be a heck of a lot more.
Can you really win scratch offs every time? Get the answer to this and lots more important tips in my free scratch off tips.
[2] Second Chance Draws
These are bonus draws that give you a chance to turn a genuinelosing ticket into a winner.
This is one of the most important things you can do with losing scratch tickets.
How Does 2nd chance Scratchers Work?
It's a random draw process. And you get one entry for everylosing ticket you submit. They then randomly pick out e.g. 10 tickets, who might all win $1,000.
How To Play 2nd Chance Scratchers?
These days they are mostly done online (you used to have to mail them in).So typically you have to register on the official lottery company website first. Then you just type in the barcode number for each of your losing tickets. Simple, right?
TIP: If the ticket is rejected when you try to enter it in a second chance draw, then check it closely again - because it might actually be a winner! And winning tickets normally cannot be entered :-)
Not every lottery company offers these extra draws (check their website).But even if they don't have one right now, they may soon. So youcould have a stockpile of entries all ready to go if you keep yourlosing tickets.
They usually limit how old a ticket can be, so there's not muchpoint keeping 10 year old tickets. But some older ones will mostlikely still work.
These draws are definitely worth doing.
Why? Because people are lazy. Most players cannot be botheredto enter 2nd chance draws.
Which means your chances are a lot better than you might think.If you CAN be bothered.
Do You Have To Keep Your Second Chance Lottery Tickets?
Yes, you do have to keep your ticket for second chance. So please do keep the scratchers that you enter. :-)
Although unlikely, technically anyone could enter the code from your ticket. So you do need to keep that ticket to be able to prove you are the rightful owner and winner of the 2nd chance prize.
How Do You Know If You Won Second Chance Lottery?
You will know if you have won the 2nd chance lottery because the lottery company will contact you.
When you enter the draw, on their website or using an app, you will need to have an account. So they know who to contact when you win.
Best Lottery Scratcher
How Does 2nd Chance Scratchers Work
Remember, 2nd chance promotions are a 'draw', not an 'instant' thing. So there is a closing date and everyone who enters before that date has a chance of winning.
And yes, you do have to wait until after the end date for that draw to find out if you won.
Odds Of Winning Second Chance Scratchers
The odds of winning a 2nd chance draw depend on how many people enter the draw. This is different to regular scratch games which have fixed odds based on how many tickets are printed.
So this means if 10,000 tickets are entered, and you enter 1 ticket then your chances are 1-in-10,000.
People are lazy, so the odds do tend to be around this level (1-in-10,000 to 1-in-20,000)
TIP: Do you know what are the best scratchers to buy? Yes, it really does matter. Because this affects your chances of winning more than anything else.
[3] Tax Offsetting
I'm not a tax expert of any kind. But in the USA lottery winningsare taxable.
What most people don't realise though is that your entry costs canbe offset against those winnings. Which can reduce your tax bill!
It's like winning all over again ;-)
But you must keep your tickets as evidence of those costs.
Talk to your tax office - they are nice folks really. They will behappy to explain if you're not sure how this works. Or how to dothe paper work.
What To Do With Losing Scratch Off Tickets
Here's what to do with losing tickets:-
- Double check they are definitely losing tickets
- Use them to enter second chance draws if possible
- Keep them until they are no longer relevant for those extra draws, or relevant for tax.
- Then you can finally throw them out!
Secrets of State Lottery Scratch-off Contracts
When most people think of advantage gambling, state lottery scratch-offs are the last thing that enters their minds.
Everyone’s heard of counting cards at blackjack. There are even several moviesabout it.
And poker has been shown to be a game of skill; just look at the repeat winners of major tournaments like the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour.
But most people still refer to the lottery as an “idiot tax”.
And scratch offs have a notoriously bad expected value (which you can think of as a gambling game’s return on investment).
To give you an example of how bad lottery tickets can be, most $1 scratch offs have an expected value of around 60%, meaning for every $1 you spend, you’re expected to get back just $0.60; a $0.40 loss.
Most penny slots have paybacks that are better than that.
And other gambling games, like blackjack, can approach 99% payback without any card counting at all.
I’m here to shed light on a new way of thinking about scratch-offs and show you how you can improve your odds. It won’t always be profitable.
But under the right circumstances, it can be. If you’re going to play regardless, you might as well maximize your chances of winning.
Here are my insights about how to win at scratch-offs. I’ve gained these insights by reading the contracts and procurement documents that state lottery organizations have with their ticket printers.
Combine these insights with sites that calculate a scratch-off ticket’s odds, and you’ll be playing like a sharp
Where Are Scratch-off Grand Prizes?
Grand prizes are not random.
I’m sure all of these insights will come as a surprise.
But this one is probably the biggest.
Surely the state wants to ensure a fair game.
How can it be fair if the biggest prizes of all aren’t even random?
Here’s an image of the procurement document that the Massachusett’s lottery used to elicit bids from ticket printers:
You’ll see that they require the grand prizes to be distributed evenly throughout the game.
Note that “distributed evenly throughout the game” is not random.
If the prizes were random, then they might all appear at the start of the game. Or they might all appear at the end of a game.
But the state doesn’t want that to happen. If all of the grand prizes were claimed at the start of the game, then people would stop playing the game because they would have no shot at the big money.
You can take advantage of this fact by figuring out how many tickets are in a “pool” where a grand prize should be. If there are 9,000,000 tickets and 3 grand prizes, then divide 9,000,000 by 3 to figure out that there must be 1 grand prize every 3,000,000 tickets.
Then, use the state’s lottery website to figure out how many tickets remain. Most states publish this information for each game.
In the example game just mentioned, if there were 7,000,000 tickets remaining and still 3 remaining grand prizes, then you know the first grand prize must be in the next 1,000,000 tickets. Your odds just improved from 1 in 3,000,000 to 1 in 1,000,000.
That may not seem like much, but it can mean the difference between negative and positive expected value.
Is There A Limit To The Number Of Big Winning Tickets In A Roll?
Here’s an image from documents filed as part of a Texas lawsuit against the state and the ticket printer:
In this contract that Texas has with IGT, there’s a clause that states that there can be no more than a certain number of $25-$50 winners per pack of tickets. There’s another clause that states there can be no more than one winner of $75 and higher per pack. (The “one” is redacted, but we can deduce that tit’s one by looking at the word following the redaction, which is “winner” rather than “winners”).
How can you use this to your advantage?
Buy only one ticket from a pack at a time and scratch it right there at the store.
If it happens to be a big winner, don’t buy any more tickets from that pack.
What Is The Minimum Payback for a Roll of Scratch-off Tickets?
This next image is from the request for a proposal from the New Mexico lottery association to ticket printers:
It shows that each pack of tickets has some guaranteed payout. The details of the guaranteed payout aren’t specified, but from other contracts and personal experience, I’ve found it to typically be about 50% of the price of a pack of tickets. If an entire roll of tickets costs $600, then the GLEP is usually about $300.
What this means for the advantage player is that you should not stop buying after a string of losers.
Since each roll of tickets is guaranteed to have a certain minimum payout, then every loser you see increases the chance that the remaining tickets are winners.
Conclusion
While none of the above insights will guarantee you will win, they are just a few of the things you can do for yourself if you want to know how to beat scratch-offs.
Easy Way To Win Lottery
Combine these insights with some expected value calculations from the remaining prizes that get displayed on the state lottery websites and you’ll be doing way better than the average lotto player.
Good luck.
About the Author
Eric Ihli, a professional gambler/programmer, spent 10 years as a full-time professional gambler and 5 years as a software engineer. He now combines those two passions by writing software to discover and evaluate profitable gambling opportunities.