Key To Winning Scratch Tickets

Winning Numbers for 09/24/2019 were:

1. Keys To Winning Scratch Off Tickets
2. What's The Key To Winning Scratch Offs

1. 6
2. 14
3. 24
4. 42
5. 46
6. 9

Keys To Winning Scratch Off Tickets

Mega Millions Winning Details* (Texas Winners Only)

*Note: Texas Lottery Commission only reports the payout information for Texas winners. For payout information of all participating states please visit www.megamillions.com.

Where Sold:

• There are different games involved in scratch off and it also depends on the amount of the ticket. Scratch off tickets are available at $1, $2, $5, $10 and even $20. Any serious scratch off fan will tell you to bet on the higher cost ticket. The odd of winning at a $5 ticket compared to a $1 ticket is higher. The rule is simple.
• From Powerball, to Mega Millions, to Keno, to Lucky for Life, to Hot Lotto: come check out our full suite of lottery games, test your luck, and win today! AS OF MARCH 1, OUR SALES OFFICE IS OPEN FOR SELLING TICKETS OVER THE COUNTER AND CASHING PRIZES UNDER $600.

This website is not the final authority on games, winning numbers, or other information. All winning tickets must be validated by the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery before prizes will be paid. Players must be 18 years of age or older. This site is continuously updated with new information. Please check back often. Please play responsibly. Finding a winning scratch ticket is impossible. In this, there's no difference between scratch off cards and a national lottery - luck is always going to prevail and be the most important factor. (non)alcohol drinks are included at 4 stops. You will visit a butcher shop from 1890, an award winning delishop, two Dutch pubs, a bakery, Indonesian take-away and a restaurant. One or two locations may differ depending on the day of the week and on Saturday a number of tastings are enjoyed on the market.

Notes:
• In the case of a discrepancy between these numbers and the official drawing results, the official drawing results will prevail. View the Webcast of the official drawings.
• Tickets must be claimed no later than 180 days after the draw date.
• A ticket is not a valid winning ticket until it is presented for payment and meets the Commission's validation requirements.
• ¹ Jackpot Option - payment option as designated on the winning ticket(s)
  • CVO = Cash Value Option
  • AP = 30 Annual Payments*
  *The Grand/Jackpot Prize is paid in 30 annual graduated installments. Annual payments for Mega Millions^® are not equal. Each payment will be greater than the previous year's payment.
• ²Megaplier^® Prize Amount - Any non-grand/jackpot prize you win in a Mega Millions play will be multiplied by the Megaplier number drawn if you have purchased the Megaplier feature. Beginning with the October 22, 2013 drawing, the second-tier prize (Match 5 + 0) is increased by 2, 3, 4 or 5 times when Megaplier is purchased. Click here to see the Megaplier prize chart.
• For a copy of the winner's list, please email us at customer.service@lottery.state.tx.us. Be sure to include the game(s) you want, your name and your mailing address.
• Just the Jackpot^® Play offers 2 chances to win the Mega Millions^® Grand Prize for $3. Just the Jackpot wagers are eligible for the Mega Millions Grand Prize ONLY! Just the Jackpot wagers are not eligible to win any other prize (non-Grand Prize) in the Mega Millions game.

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.

What's The Key To Winning Scratch Offs

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.

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.