This is for a discussion of tactics. Please add your ideas. For example, the idea, buy one scratcher at a time until you win something, then go home because the next several tickets will be non-winners, is generally true, but if I'd struck to it, I would have missed a $100 winner, which followed a $10 winner.

So what are some of your tricks? What do you believe? For instance,

1. buying the first and the last tickets on a roll.

2. buying a ticket because it has an unusual white line dividing the tickets

   (didn't work for me, through several such purchases, either before or after the white line)

3. Thinking there are more winners in a new game, first roll. (seems to work)

4. Buying tickets at out of the way, small town stores.

Okay, what are your ideas and experiences?

Before I purchase any scratch-off I always check the TX Lotto website to see if all of the grand prize tickets has been cashed in. If not then I purchase my ticket(s).

I've repeatedly heard the last ticket on a roll might be a winner. I'm really strapped for cash but yesterday I took all the non winning scratchers I had from the last three months to the store, she checked them and I had $10 I didn't realize I had. So I'm putting another ten with it, and today I'm going to buy a $20 ticket. I'm going to try buying the last ticket on the roll, if she'll pull it off for me. I don't know, do they have a rule about it? Or if the convenience store person is very friendly and sympathetic, do you think they'd do that? I'll tell you later.

Forget it, she wouldn't sell me the last ticket, said she had to sell them sequentially. So I bought one anyway.  While I was talking to her the guy buying cigarettes said he used to sell tickets, and there would often be a good winner between ticket #30 and ticket #50. Another tip, or superstition?

Some stores does not allow people to buy by # unless there are not many tickets left.   It is better to buy 3 or 5 tickets in a row if you can because odds of winning something improves.

I've tried 'em all - but of course, there isn't one guaranteed tactic - unless you buy a few at a time, which improves your chances of winning, but won't guarantee it:

A new $10.00 scratcher came out in NYC last week - "Money". I bought four tickets - nothing. Bought three tickets the next day - won $15.00.

Bought three of the older 'Stacks of Cash' tickets the next day - won $60.00.

Go figure.

I don't mean to come off sounding pessimistic, but it's all luck, plain and simple.  I've stopped supporting the lottery because i'm just gambling my precious money to make other people rich.  It may sound selffish, but I don't wanna see someone else get rich quick off of me.

Well My Husband brought me a Ten Ticket Stratch off, I did win $10.00 better than nothing right, but he said that every month he is going to buy me a $10.00 Ticket who knows maybe one day I will hit the Big one.

it is all about luck when it comes to buying stratch off tickets, but think possitive, you never know, you might win big, stop thinking negative, think possitive!

That's interesting Moneymagic, but who going to count ?

What has worked best for me is to take a peek into the trash receptacle both outside and inside the store. If there is an abundance of a particular type of ticket in the trash it could very well indicate that someone has done you the favor of increasing the odds that some winners are left of that kind. This has worked very well for me and just last week I hit $1000 on a $2 ticket using this strategy.

I always check with the Ohio Lottery website and go and look to see how many winners are still out there.

All right! There's one I've never heard. Check the trash bin. I actually logged on because I had a good winner today, $1000 on a $20 Virginia Maximum Millions ticket. First time for that big a winner. I don't try to buy tickets constantly anymore. I pick the day of the month when my biorythms (physical, intellectual and emotional) are at the highest to do the scratching. If I buy tickets between I save them until that day to scratch them. That part is mainly spending control and  having something to look forward to. Laugh if you want. Well I had enough money for three $20 tickets, one I'd bought weeks ago and saved, one bought about a week ago, and one this morning. I also had a ten dollar priced Platinum Payout.

   My gas station sells the rolls with the highest numbers first, so the last ticket ends in 000. The ticket that won for me today ended in 004, indicating it was five in from being the very last ticket on the roll.  This was one of those weird tickets, I matched every number, 33,44,11 26 etc, several of the prizes on the ticket used the same numbers, and all of them were $50. Twenty prizes for a total of $1000. Now I have to wait until I can drive to another city 1 1/2 hours away to go to the lottery office to get paid, so the money still doesn't seem real.

    Did I use any trick?  Do you honestly want to know? I went online and used Google Earth to find and print a photo of my gas station from a satellite, then all month I would direct positive thoughts to the photo, saying "There will be a ticket with a big winner on it sold to me when I walk into that gas station."  And all month kept up the positive thinking, visualizing a winner being scratched and catching myself every time I had the slighest negative thought like "the odds are against it". I'm crazy, I admit it. So flaming me about that won't hurt, but I'm happy with the win.

I don't see any reason why you're not allowed to have a fun, irrational method. I'd enjoy hearing other people's scratch off gaming superstitions.

Maybe i should try that! Good for you Moneymagic!

Absolutely the most important thing is visualizing winning, in the right way, that is, really beieving it, not just seeing yourself winning in kind of a playful and doubting way, but knowing you will. We do live in a real world that obeys real physical laws, but dozens of people are winning huge scratch off prizes every day, people no more deserving than we are, so why not us?

  The main thing I've done for myself I think is to thnk positively. I'm not religious but you know who is supposed to have said "If you had faith as small as a grain of sand" (or a mustard seed or something) you could work miracles. And that sums it up. I reccommend reading "The Power of Positive thinking".