This is why I don't like scratchers.  Someone thinks they win, and the lottery says "no you didn't."  Didn't we read one time on here that one guy thought he won and the lottery told him it was a "typo?"  Come on!  Sounds like a rip off to me!  Like this guy, I find the symbols confusing and directions misleading.  After years of scratching off one particular set of scratch offs, my husband found out he had been throwing away winning tickets because he failed to notice the second part of the directions (listed way at the bottom of the ticket and seperate from the other directions.)  The clerk said, "oh, that must have been you throwing them all away!" when she explained the rules to him.  The only reason we caught it was because he thought he had a small winner, but when he cashed it in it was worth more than he thought.  He had to ask why?  And the clerk read the directions to him and showed him how he had won.  She was a very nice clerk and I wish they were all like that.  After that, he found out he was winning all the time.  But then we stopped going to that store because we had to move, and he hasn't had that kind of luck since. 

All Rub-Off Tickets should be check by a Lottery Agent: Why? Misprints!

We hear about the Misprinted Ticket that looks like a Winner, but is deemed a Loser by the Lottery claiming it was a Misprint. We never hear about the Winning Ticket that looks like a Loser and gets Thrown Out, but because it was a Misprint is actually a Winner.

Remember when we first got scratch-off tickets in Norway. A lot of people miss read the text after scratching off and thought they had won. Many had sent them to the lottery company but didn't get any money back and didn't understand why. Usually they didn't scratch off enough.

Eh, I'm not the biggest fan of scratch offs and the use of the "so close" gimmick on losing tickets, how many times have you just ALMOST got a big winner but were one number or symbol off? That just makes some people want to play more even if they can't afford it, especially those who already have a leaning towards addiction and granted they'll justify spending more either whether it was a "close loss" or not but I think it just makes it worse.

I also think there's a certain shadyness to making certain tickets confusing with the rules and symbols, then again a lot of people don't read anything regarding the rules outside what it says on the front of the ticket. As for mistakes on the part of the makers of the tickets themselves, I think they should have to honor them or at least compensate the victim of the error. Maybe that'd encourage the producers of the tickets to work on improving the process, maybe have some sort of insurance against it.

On every scratch off ticket in Ky they have a code..If the letters on the tickets read t-e-n the it's 10.00  If it read f-i-v then it's 5.00..t-w-y is 25.00 and so on..Probably the same in all states..When you scratch your ticket off look for the letters around all the numbers..It will spell out what you have won..Good luck

Just the other day here in Pennsylvania i bought a $2 bingo instant ticket. on the left side u scratch the numbers that are being called and on the right side were the 4 game cards. i finished playing the ticket and was like man i was set 3 different times.

so i assumed i lost. but on the left side where the numbers are being called, the state uses a 3 letter code to define if you are a winner. it said "two" meant i won 2 dollars. i sat there for 30 minutes looking for this bingo and never found it.

now where the cards are that you play they are already light blue around the numbers so you have to give it a light scratch to make it turn dark blue. which i think sucks.but anyway i DID NOT see this bingo on the 2 possible games i couldve won it on because a line was worth 2 dollars. so after that half hour i decided to get a pen and start circling them on the ticket to see where i am missing this one number at. well anyway after i circled all the numbers that were called . i STILL DID NOT have a bingo. my only explanation i could come up with was that i needed b3 and they called b4. so i figured its all a scam and i will never play another instant in my whole life.

But i did cash that so called winning ticket in for my 2 dollars back.

Sounds like a lot of people are failing to read everything on the cards. They think they won, but only the lottery office can validate a win.  Happens all the time. Why, the shiny lure I keep bringing up. You think one thing, the lure is saying something else. That is why hundreds of thousand went for the variable mortgage when interest was low, and now find out they owe tons of money. They saw what they wanted to see. The $3.65 sign a gallon for gas, when it is actually $3.65 and 9/10ths a gallon. The one pound coffee bag, that is not a pound. People see what they are conditioned to see. Greed works the same way! I can't count the number of times I have added up the combination of items on a resurant menu and found it was cheaper then the combined sale price. The lottery is in business to make money, not give money away. Learn that lesson, and all the confusion in reading the cards will not be confusing.

Seems like a fairly common story.  Some guy doesn't know how to read his ticket and blames the lottery.  Another guy seeing what he wants to see.

I used to work at a gas station that sold instant tickets and in Michigan, we have something similar to that (or at least did at the time . . . not if it's still the same) in that there are a pair of matching letters somewhere on each ticket and certain letters meant a certain level of winning, up to $50 I think. You can rely on that for the smaller amounts, but anything over $50 there's no way of knowing by the letters alone.