How to Tell if a Scratch Off is a Winner Before Scratching (2024)

Lotteries and scratch offs are all games of chance, but most players look for ways to improve their odds of walking away with a prize. It would be beneficial if you could know what lies hidden on a scratch off card you plan on purchasing. You’ll know if it’s worth buying one ticket, or whether buying a few will be the better investment.

You may not be able to gauge all the information on the ticket, but we did find some tips to help. Knowing how to tell if a scratch off is a winner before scratching can make it more fun, and help you manage your lottery budget. So, try out our advice and also learn from some people who seem to have beaten the system.

Is There a Way You Can Tell if a Scratch Off is a Winner?

Experts believe there will always be ways to crack the algorithms that determine winning codes. But, since a lot of effort has gone into rectifying the errors with the early codes, it has become more difficult to crack the repeating winning sequence. In addition to the extra effort that has been put in to ensure that codes aren’t easily identified, the reality is that most players don’t have the time, resources, or technical know-how to crack codes.

However, players will easily increase their chances of winning big by playing smart and assessing their numbers. Furthermore, players should pay attention to the shops where winning tickets are bought and how many winners there have been in a specific area. This will help players determine if it may be time to continue playing out of the same pack in their area or switch to another pack.

This theory stems from the Texas Lottery only including a certain number of winning tickets in each pack that’s issued to a store. So, if a particular store only has 100 winning tickets issued to that store’s pack and there have already been 95 winners, it may mean that there may only be 5 winning tickets left. Your chances of being one of the last lucky five are slim. Therefore, some players may see this as a time to change to a different store.

When playing online, there’s not a lot you can do to determine if your ticket will be a winner or not. You’ll simply have to trust Lady Luck, or play when your horoscope tells you it’s a lucky day.

Source: LottoGo

Methods to Help You Find a Winning Scratch Off

There have been many scratch-off winners and some claim to have won purely by luck. However, if you want to try something other than simple luck, you may want to consider a few other approaches.

Look at the Scratch-Off Ticket’s Code

All scratch-off tickets have a code at the bottom. While trying to crack it may take some time, you may as well give it a try if you have the time and resources to buy several tickets.

Compare the codes and see if there are any similarities between tickets that win you small or big prizes. There is a possibility that certain letters or numbers indicate a winning ticket.

For example, ‘H’, ‘U’, and ‘N’ that appear in a code, could mean that the ticket will win the buyer one hundred dollars. Or a specific sequence of numbers could appear on all tickets with big prizes.

As you can see, it will require you to invest some money and even buy an entire roll of tickets, so you can compare many tickets’ barcodes.

Using the Singleton Method

You can use the Singleton method with scratch cards that make you a winner if revealed numbers match numbers that appear elsewhere on the card. An example is the popular Tic Tac Toe scratch card in the US.

To identify cards with a high possibility of making you a winner, look for numbers that appear only once on a particular ticket. If a card has these, especially if they fall in one straight line, you’ve found a potential winning ticket. Now scratch off the protective layer and chances are some of those numbers will appear, match with the existing numbers and make you a winner.

How is this possible?

Yes, scratch off games are supposed to operate under the assumption of randomness. However, this has proven impossible as there is no way for the lottery board to keep track of all the winning tickets in circulation. Also, ticket manufacturers use algorithms to manage the creation of the tickets, and often there is a pattern that results in the scenario described above.

People Who Cracked the System

You may still think that being able to crack the secret to knowing if a ticket is a winner before you scratch is just wishful thinking. However, there are a handful of scratch off players who have done just that! Here’s a look at their secrets.

Mohan Srivastava

Here we’re talking about the man behind the Singleton method mentioned above.

After winning a simple $3 on an old scratch-off ticket, Mohan Srivastava developed an algorithm that he believed would crack the flaw in the Tic-Tac-Toe lottery game. He discovered that certain numbers are visible on the ticket which provide a huge clue about determining which tickets are actual winners.

Here are steps to his theory:

• Mohan would typically categorize numbers based on the number of times they appeared on the card.
• Then, he would analyze how many times each number was repeated.
• He also placed extra focus on the numbers that only appeared once on the overall tic-tac-toe board. He started to refer to these numbers as “singletons” and started noticing that these numbers were often repeated under the latex coating on the card.
• Mohan deduced that some singletons would always appear in a single row on one of the boards.
• If there was a row like that, it often indicated a winning ticket, as those singletons usually appeared in the list of revealed numbers too.

With trial and error, he managed to prove that his theory worked at least 90% of the time.

Instead of using this flaw to his advantage, Mohan disclosed his discovery to the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation. After testing 20 cards with this method, it was established that 19 out of the 20 were correctly predicted by Mohan.

This eventually led to the Tic-Tac-Toe card being pulled from the shelves. Still, Srivastava used the same approach on other tickets and found it still applied, as manufacturers may not have changed their manufacturing processes. So, it’s worth trying on the scratch cards you play too.

Joan Ginther

Unlike Mohan, Joan Ginther didn’t divulge her secret to the gaming commission. Rather, she used over $3.3 million on tickets and managed to win a whopping $20 million over a period of time! Many believe that her trick also allowed her friend to secure 23 wins, seven of which saw her pocket between $1,000 and $10,000.

While many people believe that Ginther had some sort of scam going, it has never been proven and she has never disclosed her secret to knowing which tickets to choose. It’s possible that she put her degree in statistics to good use and created a smart lottery strategy. Or, since all her tickets were purchased from the same Texas store, many people think it has something to do with the whole winning streak.

Anonymous Person Cashed in 149 Tickets

A 1999 audit of scratch-off winnings revealed that an anonymous person had cashed in 149 winning tickets which totaled $237,000. Since this was discovered via an audit, there’s no way to know what strategy the person used.

Final Thoughts

Winning lotteries primarily boils down to good old-fashioned luck. However, it won’t hurt to include a few lottery strategies to improve your odds of winning big.

Will you buy more tickets, or start analyzing each ticket before you decide to buy it? Just remember to have fun while playing!

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