Scratch Card Lottery Strategy

Buy a Scratch ticket from the Colorado Lottery, scratch away and see if you’ve won anywhere from $1-$3,000,000. NOTE CLAIMS INFORMATION: — Winners of $600 or more can claim prizes by appointment only. Please call 1-800-999-2959 to schedule. Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Colorado: State & National Resources.

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.

  • The lottery will pay you more money than scratch cards, but that’s assuming that you ever win a lottery prize, as the overall odds of winning is one in 24. In comparison, and assuming a worst-case scenario, the overall odds of a scratch card is one in 12.
  • Multiple tickets from multiple different scratch-off games. You are just setting yourself up for huge losses on the day. By sticking to the same scratch-off game, you greatly increase your odds and chances of winning. Make sure you are playing ONLY $5, $10, and $20 scratch-off tickets or higher! DO NOT play $1 or $2 tickets!

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.

Scratch Card Lottery Strategy

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

Remaining Prizes Lottery Scratch Cards

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.

Scratch Card Lottery Strategy Game

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.

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Florida Lottery Scratch-Off game top prizes are limited. Click the game name for information about other valuable cash prizes available to be won in these Scratch-Off games.

Game NumberGame NameTop PrizeTop Prizes RemainingTicket CostTop Prize Winners & Retailer Information
5019 $500,000.000 of 6 $5.00Winner Report
5018 $30,000.005 of 12 $2.00Winner Report
5017 $30,000.002 of 8 $2.00Winner Report
5016 $30,000.002 of 16 $2.00Winner Report
5015 $30,000.002 of 20 $2.00Winner Report
5014 $30,000.005 of 16 $2.00Winner Report
1485 $15,000,000.003 of 4 $30.00Winner Report
1485 $1,000,000.0024 of 24 $30.00Winner Report
1484 $500,000.0015 of 16 $5.00Winner Report
1483 $50,000.0010 of 10 $2.00Winner Report
1482 $5,000.0048 of 52 $1.00Winner Report
1481 $2,000,000.005 of 8*$10.00Winner Report
1480 $1,000,000.0020 of 24*$5.00Winner Report
1479 $100,000.0032 of 36*$2.00Winner Report
1478 $10,000.0087 of 100 $1.00Winner Report
1477 $2,000,000.006 of 8*$10.00Winner Report
1476 $30,000.0014 of 16*$2.00Winner Report
1475 $30,000.004 of 12 $2.00Winner Report
1474 $500.001,096 of 19,951 $10.00Winner Report
1473 $1,000,000.002 of 4 $5.00Winner Report
1472 $50,000.004 of 8 $2.00Winner Report
1471 $10,000.0015 of 36 $1.00Winner Report
1470 $5,000,000.005 of 10*$20.00Winner Report
1470 $1,000,000.009 of 20*$20.00Winner Report
1469 $2,000,000.005 of 10*$10.00Winner Report
1468 $1,000,000.004 of 10 $5.00Winner Report
1467 $100,000.0012 of 20 $2.00Winner Report
1466 $10,000.0045 of 80 $1.00Winner Report
1464 $150,000.007 of 15 $3.00Winner Report
1463 $10,000.009 of 20 $1.00Winner Report
1462 $2,000,000.002 of 4 $10.00Winner Report
1461 $1,000,000.002 of 8 $5.00Winner Report
1460 $100,000.004 of 10 $2.00Winner Report
1459 $10,000.0019 of 50 $1.00Winner Report
1458 $500,000.007 of 14 $5.00Winner Report
1457 $5,000,000.006 of 8 $20.00Winner Report
1457 $1,000,000.0018 of 24 $20.00Winner Report
1455 $10,000.004 of 34 $1.00Winner Report
1450 $1,000,000.0070 of 155 $30.00Winner Report
1448 $50,000.001 of 12 $2.00Winner Report
1447 $10,000.009 of 40 $1.00Winner Report
1446 $2,000,000.001 of 8 $10.00Winner Report
1445 $1,000,000.001 of 12 $5.00Winner Report
1444 $100,000.003 of 20 $2.00Winner Report
1443 $10,000.0020 of 100 $1.00Winner Report
1441 $30,000.004 of 15 $2.00Winner Report
1440 $30,000.001 of 16 $2.00Winner Report
1439 $3,000.007 of 75 $1.00Winner Report
1434 $5,000,000.004 of 12*$20.00Winner Report
1434 $1,000,000.0018 of 40*$20.00Winner Report
1431 $5,000.0022 of 75 $1.00Winner Report
1428 $3,000.0010 of 75 $1.00Winner Report
1427 $2,000,000.001 of 10 $10.00Winner Report
1421 $150,000.001 of 8*$3.00Winner Report
1419 $1,000.00169 of 420 $1.00Winner Report
1418 $500.00445 of 56,303*$10.00Winner Report
1416 $3,000.0027 of 84 $1.00Winner Report
1413 $30,000.001 of 10 $2.00Winner Report
1412 $1,000.00127 of 420 $1.00Winner Report
1409 $50,000.002 of 72 $2.00Winner Report
1408 $10,000.005 of 100 $1.00Winner Report
1407 $5,000,000.003 of 9*$20.00Winner Report
1407 $1,000,000.0015 of 45*$20.00Winner Report
1404 $5,000.0020 of 84 $1.00Winner Report
1403 $30,000.004 of 30*$2.00Winner Report
1398 $5,000,000.001 of 6 $20.00Winner Report
1398 $1,000,000.001 of 20 $20.00Winner Report
1396 $20,000.002 of 30 $2.00Winner Report
1391 $2,000,000.001 of 8 $10.00Winner Report
1389 $50,000.001 of 20 $2.00Winner Report
1388 $10,000.0043 of 136 $1.00Winner Report
1382 $1,000,000.001 of 6 $5.00Winner Report
1377 $30,000.001 of 30 $2.00Winner Report
1372 $10,000.007 of 100 $1.00Winner Report
1371 $50,000.002 of 40 $3.00Winner Report
1364 $250,000.003 of 16 $5.00Winner Report
1361 $20,000.005 of 30 $2.00Winner Report
1357 $30,000.002 of 10 $2.00Winner Report
1349 $250,000.002 of 16 $5.00Winner Report
1341 $250,000.003 of 16 $5.00Winner Report
1338 $250,000.001 of 16 $5.00Winner Report
1331 $250,000.001 of 12 $5.00Winner Report
1302 $250,000.004 of 20*$5.00Winner Report
1298 $500,000.004 of 24*$5.00Winner Report
1297 $50,000.0011 of 40*$2.00Winner Report
1259 $50,000.005 of 80*$2.00Winner Report

*Denotes games that have been reordered or have been delivered to the Florida Lottery in more than one shipment.

Note: Games may be reordered, and top prizes may increase proportionally.

New York Lottery Scratch Cards

Prizes, including the top prizes, may be unavailable at time of ticket purchase due to prior sale or other causes occurring in the normal course of business.