Scratch Off Ticket Secrets

1. Scratch Off Tickets Secrets Revealed
2. Georgia Lottery Scratch Off Ticket Secrets
3. Scratch Off Ticket Secrets
4. Scratch Off Ticket Secrets

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SCRATCH OFF LOTTERY TICKETS - How to WIN! How to Pick a Winning Scratch Off Lottery Ticket and double your money using these tips. Your odds of winning with.

The odds of winning the lottery are less than getting killed by a falling meteor, but that temptation to win the big jackpot still calls to you. Sometimes it's hard to resist a simple $1 game when the right ticket could completely change your life. Plus, what harm could a dollar do? More than you think. Before you start buying weekly scratch offs or planning the mansion you'll buy with your Powerball winnings, here's some things the lottery doesn't want you to know.

A lot of people scrounge through the garbage for misread lotto tickets

The lottery is already a tricky subject since it seems to be a legal form of gambling. But in states where gambling is illegal but the lottery is fine, they claim that the lotto is a form of entertainment. It's not gambling—people just like spending money to potentially win a prize because it's such a fun game. Yet, you don't see too many people sifting through the garbage for Monopoly pieces.

Yes, it's fairly common for people to go through the garbage to try to find mistakenly thrown-out lottery winners. Edward St. John was an 83-year-old man known for going through the town's garbage, when one day he finally found a winning $1 million ticket. But another man put a claim on the ticket, stating he tossed it away by accident. When that man died before the hearing, his family took up the suit, and St. John ended up settling for $140,000.

Ed Rader didn't have to go to court for the winning ticket he found in the 'clean garbage.' First, he used the money to pay off debts. Sadly, he also used it to buy more lottery tickets, and soon, the winnings were gone.

The lottery preys on the poor

States continue to run their lottery programs because they consider it a harmless way to make money. Who doesn't want to give money to education and possibly win millions of dollars? Nobody is forced to buy a ticket, and what difference does a dollar spent here and there really make? Yet those dollars add up when they're used in a desperate hope to get out of poverty.

The Atlantic wrote that in 2014, the citizens of the 43 states with a lottery spent $70 billion on the lotto. That's more spent on the lottery than all other forms of entertainment. But the spending isn't distributed equally through the classes. North Carolina found the poorest counties had the highest lotto sales: 'Out of the 20 counties with poverty rates higher than 20 percent, 18 had lottery sales topping the statewide average of $200 per adult.' Those with the least amount of money to spend are happily handing it over to the government to get an incredibly unlikely chance to change their lives. The government isn't completely innocent in giving poor people this dream. The lottery was more actively advertised in poor communities to get their hopes up for the big win.

11 states made more off the lotto than income tax (in 2009)

Even if the lottery made 100 percent of its income on the very poorest families, they'd still have a hard time giving the numbers games up. In 2009, 11 states made more money from the state lottery than they did from corporate income taxes. In Rhode Island, the lotto made more than twice as much as corporate taxes. The smallest state would have a hard time turning all that money down. How would they afford the upkeep of the mansions of Newport?

Even when the lottery has to pay out for the winners, anyone who wins more than $600 will get the thrill of paying a 45-percent tax. Finally, the lower classes can experience the real delights of being rich—getting even more pissed about how much money the government takes.

Retailers scam lottery ticket winners

Okay, the odds aren't great, and the wrong people are targeted, but at least lotto winners get experience the fun of cashing in their tickets with no problems, right?

Of course not. Lottery retailers scam people all the time. This isn't some ingenious, number-running business, it's a pretty simple con. They just lie. Retailers will often take the winner's ticket and say, 'This isn't a winner.' If the ticket holder doesn't have proof of the winning numbers or generally doesn't want to get in a fist fight with a convenience store employee, the winner will leave figuring they just made a mistake. Then, the retailer keeps the ticket and cashes in the winnings. It's not quite a brilliant scheme, but it works.

California has had a big problem with thieving salesmen. The state has conducted sting operations on retailers where customers have complained. The undercover cop gives the clerk a 'marked' ticket and arrests them when they try to claim the winnings. Sure, that undercover cop might not get the same bragging rights as the guy who infiltrated the Mexican cartel, but it does curb the rampant scamming.

The most popular scratch offs have the worst returns

Scratch Off Tickets Secrets Revealed

People don't just get hooked on the regular, 'pick your numbers' lottery. Scratch offs are huge business. Sometimes, customers assume that since the payouts are much smaller, the chances of winning are better. But no: all lottery chances are horrible. In New York, the scratch off with the best payoff gives $0.88 per dollar. This $30 'Win $1 Million a Year for Life' ticket is so good, you'll only lose $3.60 every time you play!

That's still a lot better than the 'Lucky Tripler,' a not-so-lucky dollar scratch off that pays out only $0.59 on the dollar. Most of the scratch offs in the $1-$10 range pay off around $.61 per dollar, making them a truly horrible investment idea. Plus, you get all that weird silver junk under your fingernails, which is never attractive.

Convenience stores rely on lottery sales

Since the lottery is voluntary, if a convenience store owner has any moral qualms with the state game, they don't have to sell lotto tickets. That's true, except it would mean a potential loss of 30-40 percent in sales. Gas stations and convenience stores rely on the allure of a lottery ticket to bring customers in. Once inside, they're more likely to buy other impulse items like coffee, Twinkies, and suspicious sushi. Without lottery tickets, people are less likely to use the store or take their convenience needs elsewhere.

Plus, if the store sells a winning ticket, they get a commission from the state, which is a nice bit of free money. Then, the new status as a 'Lucky Retailer' gives the store a 12–38 percent boost in sales as everyone tries to steal some of that luck for themselves.

Lotto ticket sales rise as unemployment rises

If convenience store sales are tied so closely to the lotto, they must suffer pretty badly during a recession? Nope, because lotto sales typically go up as unemployment rises. In Chicago and Indiana, lottery ticket sales were highest in the counties with the lowest employment rates. At the worst of our most recent recession in 2008, 22 of the 42 states with lotteries had record sales. Yep, huge sales are made from capitalizing on people's desperate fears for their financial future.

With state lotto slogans like 'All it takes is a dollar and a dream,' the states are preying on hope. Garrick Blalock, a Cornell University economist stated, 'Looking at historical data, it is fair that there has been a trend of lottery tickets sales moving in tandem with economic conditions. A very likely explanation is that when people are feeling desperate, they are more likely to stop by the gas station and buy five lottery tickets, hoping they get a big windfall.' It makes sense that people suddenly without jobs and severely devalued homes would start investing their precious cash in the lottery. It doesn't make a lot of sense that states would be cool with getting half their income from the ones most in need.

It's just a tax

If the government called the lotto by its proper name, sales wouldn't be soaring. Because the lottery should be called a tax. As soon as people hear the word tax, they close their wallets and get out their voting pencils to do everything they can to keep the government away from their money. But, the lottery could change your life. People will happily give their money for that.

Now, the lottery and taxes aren't exactly the same. It would be a lot more enjoyable to do your taxes every year if there was fun number drawing at the end of it. And income taxes are not voluntary. No one will haul you off to jail Wesley Snipes–style if you don't buy a lotto ticket. But the government directly profits from the game. The biggest reason the lottery exists is because it makes so much money, specifically for education in most states. But instead of an income tax, where the government gets paid proportionately to what people make, the lottery taxes the poor by a very high margin.

A Carnegie Mellon study found that 'lotteries set off a vicious cycle that not only exploits low-income individuals' desires to escape poverty but also directly prevents them from improving upon their financial situations.' So, states may be increasing their money flow, but they're doing it by keeping poor people poor.

It takes tax money away from education

Okay, so the lottery's not good for poor people, but it's helping schools, so we can't get rid of it. Think of the children! The California Lottery alone raised $1.39 billion and gave $97 million to the Los Angeles Unified School district for the 2014–2015 school year. This can't possibly have a downside.

Unless you've been skimming through this article just for the lovely pictures, you've probably guessed there's a big downside. Though many states say that they're giving the lottery money to specific causes like education or environmental protection, the money often goes into the general state fund. From there, the money can be used for anything, and the lottery's pet causes may see no effect from the millions of dollars.

But some states do make sure that the lotto money is specifically allocated for their cause. Unfortunately, that means legislators can factor all that sweet lottery cash into the budget and start giving out fewer government funds. In the end, education spending stays exactly the same, or gets worse. According to Patrick Pierce, political scientist, 'Given a few years, a state would have spent more on education without a lottery.' In 2015, California received a C- grade for its schools in an Education Week study and placed 41st in the country in the category of having 'conditions that help children succeed.' Looks like that billion dollars isn't making a big difference.

Winning the lottery often leads to ruin

Even if everything else is bad about it, at least the lottery gives a new lease on life to the few lucky ones that defy the odds and win millions. Except, people who've been poor their whole life usually don't do well with a sudden fortune. Forbes reports that a third of lottery winners end up bankrupt, and many more suffer from increased rates of depression, divorce, and suicide. It's because such a huge amount of cash is inconceivable to most people. When you can now buy everything you've ever dreamed of, you're going to start spending. They buy houses, cars, invest poorly, and (the biggest mistake) they give too much of it away to friends without realizing the tax ramifications of their generosity. Soon enough, the money is gone.

That's not to say that every lottery winner throws all their earnings away, but a lot of them do. Billie Bob Harrell, Jr. is a sad example of winning gone wrong. Harrell won $31 million. He took his family on a trip to Hawaii, bought his loved ones houses and cars, and donated lots to the church. But people started harassing him for money, he took a bad deal with a shady lump sum payment company, and after his wife left him, he said, 'Winning the lottery is the worst thing that ever happened to me.' His son found Harrell's body at home. He'd killed himself.

The lottery sucks.

Who wouldn’t want to know how to win scratch offs, right?

We all want to win the lottery!

Scratch off cards can be pretty frustrating. You think that you’re onto a winner and then you see the card is a loser.

So is there any way to increase your odds of winning scratch offs?

You’ll be glad to know that there are definitely things you can do to win.

These are pretty simple things too! So whether you are a gamble often or just buy scratch offs or lottery tickets to hopefully hit the jackpot or win the Powerball, once in a while, you can use these tips.

In this post, I’ll give you a few tips to increase your odds of winning on every scratch off ticket you buy.

Tips to Increase Your Chances of Winning Scratch Cards

Here are a few not so “secrets” you can use to win money on your next lottery scratch card.

1. Don’t purchase the cheapest scratchers

There are so many scratch cards out there nowadays that it can be pretty confusing to know which ones to buy. You sort of feel overwhelmed by all of the choices!

There are so many different designs, prices, prizes and brands available that it can be hard to decide which ones to purchase.

Thankfully, there’s a really easy tip you can use to make sure you purchase the right ones:

Don’t buy the cheapest scratch cards.

It can be tempting to purchase the most affordable ones; after all, you can get more of them for your money.

But these cards are cheap for a reason – the prize pool is lower.

You’d be better off purchasing just a few of the more expensive cards, rather than lots of the cheap ones. It’s quality over quantity basically.

2. Buy them in bulk

While the expensive cards are better, buying in bulk is still a good idea because it increases your chances of winning.

A lot of people swear by purchasing scratch cards in bulk. Consider purchasing a few scratch cards from the same game in a single trip to the shop, rather than just buying one scratch card.

Your odds of winning may increase if you purchase in bulk. It’s like with the lottery; the more entries you have, the more chances you have to win.

If you get a bunch of scratch cards in one purchase, then the chance of hitting one of those winning scratch cards may be higher.

This is a pretty easy way to up your chances of winning, so you may want to consider it. Don’t just buy any card in bulk though. Follow the rest of the tips in our article and combine those with buying in bulk to maximize your winnings.

I’d only recommend purchasing in bulk if your budget allows it – talking of which…

3. Make sure you set yourself a budget

I cannot recommend anything more highly when it comes to playing scratch cards than setting a budget.

It’s so important for your financial health.

Just as important as actually setting the budget though, is sticking with it. Be strict with your budget.

While this doesn’t increase your chances of winning, it does keep you from losing too much money.

Set yourself a weekly or monthly budget and make sure that you stick with it.

4. Check the odds before you buy

Like I said before, the amount of scratch cards out there nowadays is crazy. There are so many to choose from.

So how do you know which ones have the best odds?

As I also said earlier, purchasing the more expensive cards is a good option.

But another simple tip is to purchase the cards with the best odds, because, well, these give you the best chance of winning!

It’s not tough to find them either.

The odds are actually printed on the back of every ticket!

Really. You can even ask the cashier at the store to tell you what the odds are on the back of the tickets before you buy them. Choose the games that have better odds, and you’ll increase your chances of winning.

5. Check your state’s website

The last thing you’d want to do is purchase a ton of cards for a game only to learn that the biggest prizes have already been claimed.

It’s completely legal to sell tickets for a scratch off game after all the top prizes have already been claimed.

That’s why I’d highly recommend checking to see if a game has had any prizes claimed before you make a purchase.

Some stores will post a flyer with the information, although sometimes this is weeks out of date.

The best way to make sure you’re not wasting your time on a game is to check with your state’s lottery website.

For example, I went on the Oregon state lottery website and viewed a scratch off game on there to see what prizes were left.

As you can see in the photo above, this Casino Gold game had two top prizes remaining. It lists the odds of winning too, which is handy!

To find your state lottery’s website, just open up Google, enter the term “[state name] lottery website,” and hit search.

I just entered the term “Oregon state lottery website,” for example.

If all of the top prizes for a game have been claimed, consider switching to a different one.

6. Keep your losing tickets

Keeping your losing tickets can be a good idea. This is because sometimes the manufacturer will run a second chance game where they ask for losing tickets to pick a best loser, so to speak.

Second chance drawings allow you to turn a non-winning ticket into another chance to win.

For example, at the time of writing, there were details of a second chance scratcher game on the Virginia state lottery website.

You could enter a non-winning ticket into the weekly eXTRA Chances drawing. The scratcher just had to have the eXTRA Chances logo on the front in order for it to be entered into the drawing. Prize themes change every month and, at the time, included gift cards, vacations, and concert tickets.

All you had to do was buy a scratcher with that logo and then if it was a losing ticket, you could either mail it to the Virginia Lottery or enter online with your non-winning ticket. Or you could use the app to enter the drawing.

Lots of states have second chance games like this.

So it’s worth checking with your state’s lottery website to see if there are any second chance games available.

Just as importantly though, keep hold of your losing tickets! You don’t have to spend any more cash, yet you get another chance to win.

7. Take in all of your losing tickets

Like I said above, you shouldn’t just throw out your losing cards and not only because of those second chance draws that I mentioned above.

No, another reason to not throw out a losing card is that it may not actually be a losing card.

There’s always a chance that you may have missed something on the ticket, which is why you should have your ticket officially checked.

You can have the computer at the retailer check the winnings to make sure that you haven’t missed anything. This way, you don’t throw away any winning cards!

It’s always worth doing, especially in games that have several different ways to win prizes because it can be easy to overlook winnings.

Get your ticket checked and you could win something!

8. Try the “Singleton” method

Georgia Lottery Scratch Off Ticket Secrets

Next on the list is a tip that was used in the past by a lot of experienced scratch card players.

It’s called the “Singleton Method.”

This method involves looking at the numbers that are visible on a card before you purchase it. Basically, you analyze the card to see if you can pick up on any patterns that can indicate whether a scratch card has certain numbers, symbols, or combinations that could lead to you winning.

Now, this method isn’t really as useful as it once was because when the manufacturer’s caught on to the fact that people were analyzing the cards this way, a large number of them designed future cards to work against this method.

Still though, there may be a few manufacturers who have not yet taken steps to address this method. So you could still use it on the type of scratch cards that have numbers visible on the side.

Scratch Off Ticket Secrets

It’s definitely an interesting theory. If you would like to learn more about how the singleton method works, then check out this guide from Casino.org.

9. Avoid package promotions

Another really useful tip I have is to avoid those “Mystery Packs” or other package promotions. This is because these promotional packages are often just a way for retailers to clear out their old stock. So they repackage older cards and then sell them in discounted ticket packages.

At first glance, it can seem like you’re getting a good deal. Who wouldn’t want discounted scratch cards, right?

In reality though, these packages are comprised of games in which the top winnings have already been claimed. This leaves you with little, if any, opportunities to win prizes yourself. It’s always best to focus on active games where there are still top prizes left to be won. That way, you have a better chance of actually winning.

10. Play them like the slots

Okay, this tip will only work if you have a lot of time on your hands and don’t mind doing some detective work, so to speak.

You’ve probably seen those people who hang around the slots waiting for someone to lose before swooping in to take that slot machine.

There’s even a Friends episode about it where Phoebe gets lurked by an older lady who always swoops in and wins right after Phoebe leaves her seat after a losing streak.

There is some science behind this method. Although the house always wins, as they say, slots do have to pay out at some point. And if a slot machine hasn’t paid off for somebody in hours, it’s likely that it will pay off for the next person who comes along.

Surprisingly, you can apply this same method to scratch cards.

Long streaks of losses can mean that your odds are better if you swoop in with a well-timed purchase.

So, how does this work with scratch cards, you ask?

Well, it’s pretty simple. Just try talking to the cashier at the store to get some information on which games have paid out recently and which ones haven’t.

That way you can play the games that not many have won yet.

While this doesn’t guarantee that you will win, it may up your chances. After all, if someone earlier bought ten tickets and lost on them all, and you buy a few, there’s a better chance your tickets will win if those previous ones didn’t.

Similarly, if another game has had lots of winners, then you’ll know which ones have paid out already, and therefore, which ones to avoid.

So keep an eye on your competition.

Good Luck!

While there’s no magic formula for winning scratch cards, there are plenty of things you can do to improve your odds and make sure that you don’t miss out on any opportunities to win!

Remember though that you should always stick to your budget. You want to keep your finances intact.

Scratch Off Ticket Secrets

Give our tips on how to win scratch offs a try and let us know in the comments section below whether you have any tips of your own!